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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



McGUFFEY'S X AT URAL HISTORY READERS 



LIVING CREATURES 



OF 



WATER, LAND, AND AIR 



FOR THE FOURTH READER GRADE 



JOHN MONTEITH, M.A. 










VAN ANTWERP, BRAGG, AND COMPANY 

CINCINNATI AND NEW YORK 



PREFACE. . / ( ?r 



The object of McGuffey's Natural History Readers 
is primarily to furnish to children, both at home and in 
school, interesting and instructive reading in the form of 
book literature. While no attempt is made to teach sci- 
ence, the hope is cherished that the descriptions of animal 
habits and characteristics may, incidentally, stimulate a love 
of nature, and of science, the interpreter of nature. 

" Familiar Animals," addressing a lower grade of ad- 
vancement, confined its subjects to mammals, because the 
facts connected with this class are apparent, and are more 
easily comprehended. 

"Living Creatures/' in respect to grade of thought 
and expression, takes a step forward. Treating of animals 
scarcely less familiar, and even more interesting, it enters 
the field of the lower groups of animal life, where the facts 
are more remote from ordinary view, demanding closer at- 
tention and thought. 

To render the illustrations in the highest degree accurate 
and helpful, the publishers have employed the services of 
artists whose study and practice have made them specialists 
in particular departments of animal drawing. 



Copyright, 1888, by Van Antwerp, Bragg & Co. 



(ii) 



CONTENTS. 



LESSON 

I. Eyes and No Eyes 
A Busy Skeleton 
Jewel-makers and Island Builde 
Among the Shells 
The Clam . 
The Clam's Shell 
Some Uses of Clams . 
The Oyster 
Oyster-catching . 
Pearls and Pearl-makers 
The Snail . . 
The Snail's Gay Relations 
Living Pinchers . 
Crabs .... 
Leeuwenhoek 
Spiders 

Miss Spider's Wedding Breakfast 
Among the Insects 
A Musical Burglar 
To a Mosquito . 
The House Cricket 
Crickets of the Field . 
Busy Bees . 

A Nice Little Housekeeper 
Butterflies and Moths . 
The Silk-worm . 
Facts About Insects . 
Among the Fishes 
Roman Fish Ponds 
"I Go A Fishing" 
Another View of Fishing 
Toads and Frogs 
Snakes 



Mrs 



Rennie 

Rennie 



Jenny 



Barbaidd. 



Miss Barr. 



Bryant, 
and Westwood. 
and Westwood. 



and the Insects 



Rev. W. Housrhton, 



(Hi) 



IV 



CONTENTS. 



LESSON 

34. How a Turtle Taught a Lesson 

35. The Box-tortoise and Its Kin 

36. Lizards and Crocodiles 

3J. Audubon . - . . . 

38. Among the Birds 

39. Water-skimmers and Flyers 

40. Wading Birds and Shore Birds 

41. The Stork . 

42. Birds of the Land 

43. The Camel-bird . 

44. Birds of the Air — The Pigeon 

45. "Lions of the Air" . 

46. Monkeys in Feathers . 

47. Red-head and his Music 

48. The Canary 

49. The Crow . 

50. Facts About Birds 

51. A Bird Nation . 

52. The Great Singers 



St. Nicholas, 



Miss Kirby 



W. T. Green 



PAGE 
I50 

154 
157 
l60 
I6 5 
171 

174 

I 7 8 
l80 
182 

185 
188 
192 
194 
196 
198 
200 
202 
205 




Robin-redbreast. 




I. EYES AND NO EYES. 



More than a hundred years ago, lived Mrs. Bar- 
bauld in a quiet place in England where, with her 
husband, she kept a small school for children. Her 
deep interest in her pupils and in children generally, 
together with her simple and pleasant style of writing, 
made her a great favorite. Her books for the young 
are among the few that have outlived the age in which 
they appeared. 

(v) 



6 LIVING CREATURES. 

One of the charming little books containing Mrs. 
Barbauld's writings is entitled "Evenings at Home." 
In it is included a story called "Eyes and No Eyes, 
or the Art of Seeing." This story is here selected 
and adapted to introduce some short histories of living 
creatures that are to be found in this marvelous world 
in which we live. These creatures could never have 
been described had there been no sharp and careful 
eyes. Much less can their wonderful characters be 
understood unless dull and thoughtless eyes can be 
made bright and quick. Sharp wits follow sharp eyes. 

A few words of explanation must precede the two 
boys in the story. They lived a hundred years ago, 
and wore the dress peculiar to their time. Their coats 
were short, and were called "monkey-jackets." Their 
trousers were tight, and terminated at the knees. Then 
followed long stockings and very low shoes, which were 
apt to stick in the mud and come off. 

Boys, a hundred years ago, had a bad habit of car- 
rying their hands in their pockets, when they had 
pockets. The best way to cure them of this habit was 
to sew up the pockets, or, better, to have no pockets 
at all. The latter was precisely the case with the two 
boys of Mrs. Barbauld's story. The only pocket they 
had was just capacious enough to hold a handkerchief. 
This fact will explain the reason why, when the boy 
of a hundred years ago found rusty nails, pieces of 
tin and glass, wet clams and dirty marbles, he did not, 
like the boy of to-day, thrust them into his pocket, ' 
but rather tied them up in his handkerchief But 
stop ! One of the boys is coming in to see Mr. 
Andrews, his teacher. 



EYES AND NO EYES. 7 

"Well, Robert, whither have you been walking this 
afternoon?" asked Mr. Andrews, as the lad entered 
his room at the close of a holiday. 

"I have been, sir, to Brown Heath," replied Rob- 
ert, "and around by the windmill on Camp Mount, 
and home through the meadows by the river." 

"Well, that is a pleasant round," said Mr. Andrews. 

"I thought it very dull, sir," said Robert. "I 
scarcely met with a single person. I had rather by 
half have gone by the turnpike road." 

"Why yes, if seeing men and horses were your ob- 
ject, you would indeed have been entertained on the 
high-road. But did you see William?" 

"We set out together," answered Robert, "but he 
lagged behind in the lane ; so I walked on and left 
him." 

"That was a pity," Mr. Andrews said. "He 
would have been company for you." 

"O, he is so tedious, always stopping to look at 
this thing and that," said Robert, impatiently. "I had 
rather walk alone. I dare say he has not yet got 
home." 

"Here he comes! Well, William, where have you 
been?" asked Mr. Andrews of the boy who had lagged 
behind. 

"O sir, the pleasantest walk!" answered William. 

"I went all over the Brown Heath, and so on up 
to the mill at the top of the hill, and then down among 
the meadows by the side of the river." 

"Why, that is just the round Robert has been tak- 
ing," exclaimed Mr. Andrews, "and he complains of 
its dullness, and prefers the high-road." 



8 LIVING CREATURES. 

"I wonder at that," said William. "I am sure I 
hardly took a step that did not delight me, and I have 
brought home my handkerchief full of curiosities." 

PART 2. 

^Suppose, then, you give us some account of what 
amused you so much. I fancy it will be as new to 
Robert as to me," suggested Mr. Andrews. 

"I will, sir," said William, cheerfully. " On the 
road leading to the Heath, I spied a thing curious 
enough, in the hedge. It was an old crab-tree out of 
which grew a great branch of something green, quite 
different from the tree itself. Here is a branch of it. " 

"Ah!" exclaimed Mr. Andrews, "this is the mistle- 
toe, a plant of great fame on account of the use made 
of it by the Druids of old in their religious rites. It 
is one of those plants which do not grow in the ground 
by a root of their own, but fix themselves upon other 
plants; whence it is styled a parasite." 

"A little further on," continued William, "I saw 
a green woodpecker fly to a tree, and run up the trunk 
like a cat. What beautiful birds they are ! When I 
got upon the open heath, how charming it was! The 
air seemed so fresh, and the prospect so free and wide ! 
Then it was all covered with gay flowers, many of 
which I had never seen before. I saw several birds 
that were new to me. There was a flock of lapwings 
that amused me much. As I came near, some of 
them kept flying round and round just over my head, 
and crying pee-wit, so distinctly one might almost fancy 
they spoke. I thought I should have caught one of 



EYES AND NO EYES. 9 

them, for he flew as though one of his wings was 
broken, and often tumbled close to the ground. But 
as I came near, he always made a shift to get away." 

"Ha, ha!" interrupted Mr. Andrews, laughing, 
"you were finely taken in, then. This was an arti- 
fice of the bird's to entice you away from its nest; for 
they build upon the bare ground, and their nests 
would be easily observed did they not draw off the 
attention of those who disturb them by their loud 
cries and pretended lameness." 

"I wish I had known that," said William, "for the 
bird led me a long chase, often over shoes in water. 
However, it was the cause of my falling in with an 
old man and a boy who were cutting and piling turf 
for fuel ; and I had a good talk with them about the 
manner of preparing the turf, and the price it sells at. 
I then took my course up to the windmill on the 
mount. What a wide prospect ! I counted fifteen 
church steeples. From the hill I went straight down 
to the meadows below, and walked on the side of a 
brook that runs into the river. There were a great 
many dragon-flies all about the stream. I caught one 
of the finest, and have got him in a leaf. But how I 
longed to catch a bird that I saw hovering over the 
water, and that, every now and then, darted down into 
it ! It was all over a mixture of the most beautiful 
green and blue, with some orange color." 

"I can tell you what that bird was," said Mr. An- 
drews. "It was a kingfisher, the celebrated halcyon 
of the ancients, about which so many tales are told." 

4 'There were a great many swallows, too, sporting 
upon the surface of the water," continued William. 



10 LIVING CREATURES. 

"Sometimes they dashed into the stream; sometimes 
they pursued one another so quickly that the eye 
could scarcely keep up with them. A little further 
along, I saw a man in a boat catching eels. While I 
was looking at him, a heron came flying over my 
head with large, flapping wings. After I had left the 
meadow, I crossed the cornfields on the way to our 
house, and passed close to a marl pit. I picked up 
a piece of marl which was quite full of shells ; but 
how sea-shells could get there, I can not imagine.'' 

"What a number of new ideas this afternoon's 
walk has afforded you! " exclaimed Mr. Andrews. "I 
do not wonder that you found it amusing; it has been 
very instructive, too. Did you see nothing of these 
sights, Robert?" 

"I sazv some of them," answered Robert, "but I 
did not take particular notice of them." 

"Why not?" asked Mr. Andrews. 

"I don't know," Robert answered. "I did not 
care about them, and I made the best of my way 
home." 

"That would have been right," remarked Mr. An- 
drews, "if you had been sent on an errand; but as 
you walked only for amusement, it would have been 
wise to seek out as many sources of it as possible. 
But so it is. One man walks through the world with 
his eyes open, and another with his eyes shut; and 
upon this difference depends the superiority of knowl- 
edge the one has over the other. I have known sail- 
ors who have been in all quarters of the globe, and 
who could tell you nothing but the signs of the tip- 
pling houses they visited in different ports, and the 



A BUSY SKELETON. II 

quality and price of the liquor. On the other hand, 
a Franklin could not cross the channel without making 
some observations useful to mankind ; while many a 
thoughtless youth is whirled throughout Europe with- 
out gaining a single idea worth crossing a street for. 
The observing eye and the inquiring mind find im- 
provement and delight in every ramble in town or 
country. 

"Do you, then, William, continue to make use of 
your eyes ; and you, Robert, learn that eyes were 
given you to use." 



2. A BUSY SKELETON. 



When girls and boys are called upon to write out 
their own thoughts, they are sometimes puzzled to 
find subjects for this useful and charming exercise. 
Perhaps they look too far away. The best subjects 
are near at hand. Here is one, for example: "The 
school history of a sponge." This airy, thirsty com- 
panion of the slate has had an eventful experience. 
Think over what it has done from the time it was tied 
to some particular slate down to the moment when it 
was abandoned for the rubber eraser, and when the 
slate was put aside for the paper tablet. 

The sponge has been a most useful servant, though 
its work is peculiar. The pencil creates ; the sponge 
destroys. It is an excellent destroyer. How often 
young brains have toiled hard, and small fingers have 
worked wearily to build castles and pyramids of fig- 



12 



LIVING CREATURES. 




Sponge Fishing-. 

ures which the sponge, with a 
single stroke, has wiped out of 
existence ! 

The sponge is always a friend 
to cleanliness. It helps to for- 
get mistakes, and in this way 
soothes wounded feelings. It has 
wiped out a great many wrongs — 
wrong figures, wrong answers, 
wrong writing, wrong spelling, 
and innumerable scrawls and 
awkward pictures which thought- 
less pencils have inscribed upon 
the abused surface of the slate. 
It would comfort us if we could 
as easily and completely erase 
the marks of our wrong deeds 
from ourselves and from others. 

Perhaps it has never occurred 
to the girls and boys who have 
so often used the sponge to cleanse 
their slates and their reputations, 



A BUSY SKELETON. 1 3 

that they were handling a skeleton. Ordinarily a skel- 
eton is considered a disagreeable thing for a compan- 
ion ; but the sponge is a skeleton as truly as if it were 
the naked bones of a fish or a cat. And this starts 
up another thought about the sponge. Our work in 
the world must be done while we are alive ; after we 
die, our bones are useless. The sponge, while it lives, 
does no work except to take its food. When it dies 
its usefulness begins. Then it is that its skeleton, not 
only in the school-room, but in many of the world's 
arts, becomes a busy, useful, durable helper. 

It may now occur to the reader who has never be- 
fore thought of it, that the natural history of the 
sponge may be even more interesting than its school 
history. What is the sponge ? will be an attractive 
question to answer, after describing the different kinds 
of sponges and how they are obtained. 

The men in the picture represent Dalmatians. They 
are fishing for sponges. From these hints it is easy 
to conclude that sponges live in water, and in a par- 
ticular body of water which may be found by consult- 
ing the map. Do not, however, rashly conclude that 
sponges are fishes. Oysters and pearls are said to be 
''fished," yet no one should really think they are 
fishes. 

There are sponges which live in fresh water, but 
they are not the kind which we are now speaking of. 
The useful sponges come from the shores of the Med- 
iterranean and Red seas, from the Florida coast, and 
from the Bahama Islands. There are three principal 
kinds of sponges that are gathered for sale. The large 
horse or bath sponge is from the Mediterranean and 



14 LIVING CREATURES. 

the Bahamas. The second kind includes the zimocca 
of the Mediterranean, and the yellow, or hard-head 
sponges of American waters. These are all dense, 
thick, and hard. The third kind is the finest, softest, 
and most delicate of all, and is the Turkish toilet 
sponge. 

The men in the boat are supposed to be fishing with 
a five-pronged spear or harpoon. The water must be 
very quiet to enable them to see their game fifty or 
sixty feet below the surface. The most ancient way 
of getting sponges was by diving. To this method 
the Greek sponge-fishers were trained from childhood. 
The diver had a stone slab fastened to his feet, and 
the end of a long rope tied about his waist. A net, 
or game-bag, to hold the sponges, was hung from his 
neck. When he reached the bottom, he snatched all 
the sponges he could see and quickly grasp ; then he 
pulled on his rope to announce that he was ready, and 
was lifted to the boat. Sometimes, after descending 
to the depth of a hundred feet or more, the diver 
would reach the surface in a swoon and bleeding at 
the nose. 

One method by which sponges are now gathered is 
by dredging or scraping the bottom of the shallow sea- 
coast with a net. The Greeks, however, use the div- 
ing dress. This, in appearance, is something like the 
ancient coat of mail. It is air-tight and incloses the 
whole body, covering the head in a helmet in which 
are windows for the eyes to look through. This 
helmet is joined by a rubber hose which reaches to a 
boat on the surface of the water. A pump forces 
fresh air through the hose to the diver below. 



A BUSY SKELETON. 



15 



PART 2. 



Is the sponge a plant or an animal ? Looking at it 
as it sits on the bottom, one might reasonably take it 
for a sort of mushroom, or cabbage-head. Ever since 
sponges came into use, and until within a few years, 
they have been regarded as vegetables. There are 
still thousands of people who believe them to be marine 
plants ; for the common impression is that all animals 
move about. 

The sponge is a real animal. This fact was found 
out, as thousands of wonders in nature have been 
brought to light, by indus- 
trious search, and by the use 
of sharp eyes. It was dis- 
covered that small pieces 
were somehow separated 
from the living sponge, and 
that these chips floated away, 
and began to grow and move. 
Eggs were also found in 
sponges ; and from eggs come 
animals. The little chips 
and pieces of wool that YoungSponge * 

hatched from the eggs soon throw out long, slender 
hairs which move like oars, and paddle the tiny animal 
from place to place. 

Without eyes and without ears, the little sailor feels 
its way about in the deep watery world by means of 
its hair legs. It will run against plants and rocks, as 
a blindfolded child in the game encounters chairs and 




1 6 LIVING CREATURES. 

tables. Then it paddles around the obstacle, and 
shoves itself away into the free water, asking help of 
nobody. 

By and by this homeless infant settles down on the 
sea-bottom with its mouth — if a simple hole can be 
called a mouth — against the place where it is to be 
fixed. It spreads out a thin, flat membrane which 
drives out the water beneath it, and then it is held 
down by the weight of the water above. Here it 
grows into the little cavities of the bottom, attaches 
itself firmly, becomes an adult sponge, and ever after 
remains fixed, or until some fisherman lays his hand or 
spear upon it. 

Far more absurd than the little waif with thread-like 
legs is the stationary animal now to be explained. It 
has no head, no tail, no legs, no arms, no eyes, no 
ears, no real mouth, no stomach, no heart, no lungs, 
no true blood. It never moves from its place, and yet 
it is alive. It can not go in search of food, but expects 
food to come in search of it. Fortunately, the rolling, 
restless sea takes care of it. There is afloat in some 
waters a mass of minute vegetables and animals so 
small as to be seen only with the microscope. These 
are the food brought to the sedentary sponge by the 
motherly waves. 

The living sponge, like the living human body, has 
its hard parts and its soft parts. The hard parts of 
our bodies are chiefly bone ; taken together, we call 
them the skeleton. The hard parts of the sponge are 
this porous, springy article which is used on the slate 
and in the bath. This is its skeleton ; and it is made 
of fine, horny fibers. The soft parts of the animal 



A BUSY SKELETON. 1 7 

have been removed from it. They are a jelly-like sub- 
stance which lines all the holes and pores of the skel- 
eton. Over the outside of the sponge is a thin, net-like 
membrane, which opens and closes the canals that run 
their crooked course from the middle of the sponge to 
its surface. 

Opening and closing its many holes, to let in and 
throw out food, is about all the work the living sponge 
does. The floating food is admitted into a large num- 
ber of tubes or canals, and is carried through a thou- 
sand or more cavities which take up the food and di- 
gest it. After the nourishment of the food has been 
received, the useless matter is carried out through the 
porous canals, and expelled at the surface of the 
sponge. 

On the water-bottoms sponges show all sorts of 
forms. Some seem to be made of glass threads. Some 
are flat like sheets. Others are like clumps or small 
bushes ; still others resemble vases. 

When they are brought to the surface by the men 
and boys who fish for them, the sponges are thrown 
into tanks of water, after which decay soon begins. 
Then they are taken out and all the soft, or what was 
living matter, is beaten out of them. After this the 
skeletons are dried, and are ready for market. When 
they reach the first market-center they are further 
cleaned, are cut into regular shapes, and are sometimes 
bleached by the use of chemicals. The sponge trade 
at the principal European market amounts to nearly a 
million dollars annually. 

Such is a short, natural history of a busy skeleton, 
or of a bucket full of holes that never leaks. 

L. C.-2. 



1 8 LIVING CREATURES. 



3. JEWEL-MAKERS AND ISLAND BUILDERS. 

Fifty years ago, a pretty ornament in the dress of 
a young lady was a necklace made of red coral. 
From the same material cameos were cut, and ear-rings 
and brooches were made. These jewels were, at one 
time, expensive. The finest rose-tinted coral was val- 
ued at six hundred dollars an ounce. And in those 
days, when coral ornaments were so popular, there 
were at Algeria alone, engaged in coral fisheries, more 
than three thousand men. 




Sprig of Tree- coral Enlarged. 

Now something very strange has happened, and 
coral jewelry is worth scarcely any thing. Men have 
invented to take its place something which is a per- 
fect imitation of both ivory and coral. They call it 
celluloid. It is made of cotton melted with chemicals 
and pressed into bars or thin sheets, and often colored 
with attractive tints. Of it are formed useful articles, 
such as knife handles and eye-glass frames, and various 
other things used for ornament. This new cotton 
jewelry has destroyed the old-time precious value of 
coral. 

For a long time even learned men believed coral to 
be a plant. After closer examination they concluded 



JEWEL-MAKERS AND ISLAND BUILDERS. I9 

that it was part plant and part animal. Still later 
coral was declared to be manufactured by insects ; and 
many people at the present time speak of the " coral 
insect." 

Coral is not a plant, nor is it an animal-plant. It is 
not manufactured by an insect or by any other ani- 
mal. The living coral, as it is found in the sea, is an 
animal, and the dead coral in the necklace is a part 
of the skeleton of a once living coral. Here, then, is 
an animal a little like the sponge. It is stationary, 
or fixed to a particular place. It is a little higher grade 
of animal than the sponge ; for, while it has no eyes, 
ears, nose, or legs, it has a simple mouth, a stomach, 
and something like feet, all of which the sponge does 
not possess. 

The preceding illustration presents an object quite 
like a flower. It is a sprig of a kind of coral that 
branches out like a tree. No wonder people once 
thought the coral a plant. The petals or leaves of 
the flower, however, are the feelers or feeders of the 
animal. They are called tentacles. They have also 
been regarded as feet ; and because there are many of 
them the animal was named a polyp, which means 
many-footed. Some kinds of polyps are produced from 
eggs, and for a while swim about. 

The hole in the middle of the flower is the mouth. 
The petal-like tentacles move ; and, when the proper 
food floats within reach, they grasp it and turn it into 
the mouth. From the mouth the food passes into the 
stomach, from which the nourishment is sent to every 
part of the polyp, while the useless matter is thrown 
out again at the mouth. When danger approaches, 




20 LIVING CREATURES. 

the tentacles fold in like the petals of a morning-glory, 
and close the mouth. 

From the food which it takes, the soft part of the 
polyp is grown, and the hard part, or coral, is pro- 
duced precisely as our flesh and bones are made from 

the things we eat. Only, in 
the case of the coral animal, 
too much of the stony bone 
is produced, and the living 
bf polyp is constantly growing 
*U§T U P> an d leaving the hard skel- 
eton behind as a dead stem. 
A bud puts forth near the 
base of the polyp, and soon 
another animal blossoms out 

Red Coral Magnified. w j th peta l s or tentacles. 

So the budding and blossoming of these flower-ani- 
mals goes on until many polyps, together with the 
dead stems of coral that support them, make a branch 
like the twig of a tree ; or they crowd into a clump 
like a half-round stone, or a plum-pudding. One of 
these clump-like corals covers its surface with starry 
flower forms. Another appears like a round mass of 
human brains, and is called brain-coral. 

PART 2. 

How the beautiful corals of the Mediterranean Sea 
get their delicate pink, and rich, red tints, can not be 
known, as no one can tell how roses acquire their 
charming colors. By growing stems or skeletons of 
such fine texture and attractive hues, coral polyps may 



JEWEL-MAKERS AND ISLAND BUILDERS. 



21 



be justly called jewelers of the sea. But some kinds of 
coral animals do even a greater thing than to prepare 
their bodies to adorn a maiden's neck ; they pile their 
skeletons in such vast heaps and so high, that islands 
are formed upon which trees grow, and animals, and 
even men, live. The Bermuda Islands in the Atlantic 
are raised on coral beds ; and coral reefs are thrown 
out around the Florida coasts. 
The most interesting of coral 
islands are in the Pacific Ocean. 

The island builders, though 
too coarse and dull in their hard 
parts to answer for ornaments, 
are none the less beautiful in 
their forms. They live in trop- 
ical waters which never grow 
colder than summer warmth. 
They can not live in a depth 
of water greater than about one 
hundred and eighty feet. How, 
then, can they rear islands from 
the bottom of the sea? 

Geography tells us that on 
the sea-bottom rest hills and mountains like the eleva- 
tions which rise on the dry land. Some of these 
mountains are very lofty, and upon them are caught 
and gathered immense quantities of dead shells, and 
rubbish that floats in the ocean. In this way these 
mountains lift their heads higher and higher; and 
when one of them comes within two hundred feet of 
the surface, the coral polyps begin to fasten upon it, 
and to make it their home. 




Reef-coral and Polyp. 



22 LIVING CREATURES. 

Here they live and multiply, fed, like the sponge, 
by the surging waters ; and they climb up on the 
ever dying skeletons of those that have lived before 
them, until they reach the surface. All this time, 
which must be a very great many years, the dashing 
of the water has constantly broken and crumbled the 
coral, so that the holes and cracks have been filled, 
and the wall is solid. 

The little flower-animals, some of which are exceed- 
ingly small, love to throw out their petal-tentacles in 
the free, rushing water, where their food is most 
abundant. This leads them to crowd to the edge of 
the island, so that when their work, which is called a 
reef, reaches the surface of the water, it is in the 
shape of a ring or a horseshoe. In the middle of 
the ring is a quiet lake, called a lagoon. 

When the reef rises near to the surface of the water, 
the corals begin a rough experience. Then they crum- 
ble and break off by the force of the waves that dash 
over them, and are heaped up above the level of the 
water. The waves grind the surface into soil. Seeds 
are wafted from far distant shores and find this soil. 
Trees and flowers grow ; and could you ascend with 
the eagle and look down, you would see this coral 
reef lying like a leafy wreath on the bosom of the 
ocean, beautiful, strong, but made of skeletons. 

Somehow birds find these lonely coral islands of the 
Pacific. On one of them, where no human beings 
dwell, Professor Dana, of Yale, found multitudes of 
birds who had no fear of man. No hunters with 
noisy guns had ever disturbed their peace. No heart- 
less boys had broken their eggs or snatched away their 



AMONG THE SHELLS. 23 

young. He plucked them from the branches as one 
picks fruit. "And many a songster," he says, "lost 
a tail-feather as it sat perched upon a branch, appar- 
ently unconscious that the world contained an enemy. " 



4. AMONG THE SHELLS. 



Few eyes that read these lines have never seen 
shells. They abound in nearly all waters and in the 
moist places of the land. The surf of the ocean and 
the waves of the lakes wash them upon the beach. 
They lie on the bottoms of ponds and rivers, hide in 
gutters and gardens, and show their white whorls by 
the roadside. Some of the great rocks are made of 
myriads of minute shells that once covered soft, living 
animals. 

If those who live in the crowded city have never 
seen these creatures in their natural haunts, they may 
find them in temporary boarding places. In some 
eating-houses there are at certain seasons large piles 
of oysters dripping with melting ice. These are usu- 
ally alive until they are forced open. The half shell 
with its white lining and black center-spot may be 
easily obtained. The pearl-lined clam shells have often 
served little girls for dishes, as they served savages 
thousands of years ago. 

Then there are pearl buttons, knife handles, and 
card-cases in show-windows, and jewelry set with 
rare pearls glistening in show-cases. All these may 
be seen and enjoyed without cost. Who ever stops 



24 



LIVING CREATURES. 



to think that they are somehow related to the oys- 
ter? Yes, these pretty objects in the show-case have 
come from shell-animals, the story of whose birth and 
life is well worth reading. 




To make the story more real and impressive, get 
some shells and study them. You may play with them 
and yet know little about them. I have seen little girls 
on the clean beach of the lake shore gathering with 



AMONG THE SHELLS. 2$ 

delight the small, conical shells which they are taught 
to call periwinkles. Are they periwinkles? Quite 
different from them are the periwinkles described by 
Charles Dickens in some of his stories. These are 
shell-animals which poor people gather at the salt 
water, and after cooking them, pick out the meat with 
a crooked pin. 

It would be absurd to say that boys in the country, 
especially if they are near creeks or rivers, can not 
find fresh-water clams or mussels. A little wading in 
shallow water tempered by the sun may be required ; 
but wading is not a great trial to the average boy. 
Snails anybody may find. Empty snail shells abound, 
which may be examined without and within to see 
how curiously they are wrought. Living snails may 
be captured in their hiding places. 

With these shell-animals in hand, something may be 
learned. The oyster and the sea-clam will not perform 
before their captors, they are so shy. With a strong 
knife, however, they may be easily opened, if one 
knows how to do it. The fresh-water clam, if laid in 
water, will probably open its shell. The snail, when 
placed in a shallow dish and surrounded by tepid water, 
will come out of its twisted house. 

Something common to all these animals may now 
be learned ; namely, they live in hard shells and their 
bodies are entirely soft. A good way to prove that 
clams and oysters are soft is to eat them. They could 
not slip so easily over the tongue if they had bones. 
Now for these, and for all their soft, shell-covered 
cousins, we have a convenient word. They are called 
mollusks. This is a good name for soft things, you 



26 LIVING CREATURES. 

will sa)', when you remember that when a hard piece 
of leather or a rough temper is softened, it is said to 
be mollified. 

Something further must be observed. The shells 
of the fresh-water clam, the salt-water clam, and the 
oyster open like a book with a hinge at its back. 
Break the hinge and there are two shells nearly alike. 
The snail shell can not be opened in this way. It is 
single, and looks as if it had been whirled or twisted. 

It is plain that, besides protecting them against vio- 
lence, these shells are designed in part to shut the 
water out and to shut the soft animals, or mol- 
lusks, in. Opening and closing perfectly tight, they 
act like the valves of a pump. They are, there- 
fore, called valves. The clam, mussel, and oyster, 
having two shells, are called bi-valves. The snail 
and its kin, having but one shell, are called uni-valves. 
There is a long list of shell animals that are clam-like, 
and a long and brilliant one that are snail-like. 



5- THE CLAM. 



About the year 1626, John Smith, the founder of 
Virginia and the author of the charming story of 
Pocahontas, wrote a book about his adopted country. 
In this book he describes the natural attractions of 
Virginia; and among other good things, he mentions 
the mollusk which is the subject of this chapter. 
' 'You shall scarce find," says he, "any bay or shallow 



THE CLAM. 



2^ 



shore, or cove of sand, where you may not take many 
clamps." This shows that the clam was once called a 
clamp — an appropriate name, as we shall see. 

The long" clam and the round clam are those which 
John Smith referred to. Sometimes these animals may 
be found with their valves open. In this condition, 
should a finger be inserted into the opening, the two 
valves of the shell will instant- 
ly close ; and if the finger is 
caught, its owner will know by 
experience that the clam is a 
clamp — a very close pinching 
clamp. Oysters are still more 
severe pinchers ; hence they 
might also have been named 
clamps. 

To speak intelligently of 
the clam, its various parts 
must be named. The two 
half shells have already been 
called valves. Looking at the 
figure, the thick edge of the closed shell is the back 
(b). Each of the knobs on the back is called an umbo ; 
together they are called umbones. Between the um- 
bones on the back is the hinge. The sharp edge 
is the ventral edge (v). The large end of the whole 
shell is the front end (/) ; and the smaller end is the 
rear end (r). Holding the shell with its back up and 
the rear end toward you, the valve on the right-hand 
side is the right valve, and the other is the left valve. 
The largest half shell of the oyster is always the left 
valve, and lies downward. 




Long Clam. 



28 



LIVING CREATURES. 



The long clam burrows in the sand, as John Smith 
intimated. How a shell can do such work could never 
be guessed if it were always found closed. Here then 
is a picture of the clam in action 
precisely as it works in the sand. 
Its front end is down, its rear 
end is up. But what is the long 
thing sticking up, and the short- 
er thing sticking down? The 
former is called the neck, and 
the latter the foot. Leaving the 
neck to be described further on, 
let us look at this foot. 

A remarkable member is the 
foot. It never walks. It only 
digs ; and it digs so rapidly, that 
one trying to catch this clam with 
a hoe must work briskly, or the 
foot will bore its hole in the sand 
faster than the hoe can uncover 
it. The fresh-water clam, or mus- 
sel, uses its foot for furrowing or 
plowing the bottom, but never 
for burrowing. Besides acting as 
a spade or auger, this foot carries 
the ear of the clam. At the 
slightest noise, the foot and neck 
are drawn in, and the shell is 
closed. There is another and 
still stranger thing about the clam's foot. It is close 
by the brains of the animal. Therefore Rev. Mr. 
Lockwood pleasantly says of the long clam's brother, 




Clam in Action. 



THE CLAM. 29 

the fresh-water mussel, or river-clam, " the mussel's 
brain is at the base of the understanding, that is, ex- 
actly under the foot." 

To understand the clam animal, we must look 
within its shell. This is opened by running a knife- 
blade between the valves. How monkeys and apes 
on the wild coast open them without knives, we are 
not informed. The ancients tell a story of monkeys 
watching the clam or oyster until it opened itself, and 
then inserting a little stone to prevent its closing. 

The knife, when used for this purpose, must pass 
within, and along the back, and cut two tough straps 
that hold the valves together. Then the shell will 
open on its hinge, and the two valves will lie back like 
the two covers of a book. Now we have the book 
opened, (page 31), and we must see what it contains. 

Laying aside the right cover or valve, here is the 
soft animal lying on its bed of pearl in the left valve. 
The first thing to notice is a slippery, filmy cloak 
which wraps the animal as a water-proof sometimes 
wraps a school-girl. This leathery cloak is called the 
mantle. In its edge (e) is the sense of feeling; quite 
likely, also, the sense of sight. 

Lay back the mantle, and there is exposed the foot 
(/) now drawn in. At the rear end is the long, ex- 
tended neck which includes two tubes, or siphons. 
The siphons of the fresh-water clam are not joined, 
and extend at different points in the shell. Through 
the lower tube (7) the water flows in to feed the clam. 
Through the upper tube (0) the same water passes out 
after the animal has used the food it contains. 

Those who dig for clams on the sea coast, find out 



30 LIVING CREATURES. 

what this siphon is for. Often the active little mol- 
lusk, as it burrows away from the hoe, throws a stream 
of water into the face .of the digger. 

PART 2. 

Hunt around now for the mouth. You might ex- 
pect it to be near the end of the neck, where most ani- 
mals have their mouths. But no; it is at the opposite 
end of the clam, not far from the foot. It is only an 
opening (in). The clam has no teeth, no tongue, in 
fact no head. Away up under the hinge is its heart 
(//). Its food consists of animals and plants floating 
in the water. These are invisible except through the 
microscope. 

The water that enters by the inflowing siphon (z) 
carries this food to the mouth (m). As the water, 
which carries air as well as food, flows toward the 
mouth, it passes over the gills (g) by which the clam 
breathes; for clams must breathe. There are four of 
these gills, and they are filled with small, thin tubes 
into which the cold, white blood of the clam flows, 
and takes the air from the water on its way to the 
mouth. 

The gills do for the clam what the lungs do for the 
reader, as is simply explained in the little book en- 
titled, "The House I Live In." The smelling nerve 
of the clam is not far from where the siphon joins the 
gills (n). It is used to detect the character of the 
water which flows to the gills. 

It is rather strange to find the mouth of an animal 
at one end, and the neck and nose at the opposite end ; 



THE CLAM. 



31 



but any absurd thing may be expected in a creature 
whose ears and brains are about its foot. Still another 
fact is brought to light through the microscope. For 
both air and food, the clam must have an almost con- 
stant stream of water running into it ; and to carry 
away the food it rejects, and the impurities of its 
blood, it must have a steady stream going out. 

To keep the water moving both in and out, the in- 
side of the siphon is covered with minute hairs which, 
by constant motion like little paddles, pull and push 




Fig. I. Showing the Clam within the Shell. 

the water along. The gills are covered by these hair 
paddles. The mouth is surrounded by them, and all 
together they keep the water in motion. In the out- 
flowing siphon the same kind of hairs work the other 
way, and move the waste water out. 

What now is meant by the saying, " As happy as a 
clam"? Like the sponge, the clam never goes in 
search of food. The food must come to the clam. 
When the ocean tide is out, the clam is left in its hole 
on the dry beach. It grows hungry during the six 
hours of low tide. Up near to the top of the hole it 



32 LIVING CREATURES. 

rises, and stretches out its siphon for the first ripple 
of food-laden water, as a child holds out its hand for 
bread. 

Very likely, too, it puts out its foot with a rude ear 
on it, to catch the music of the advancing surf as the 
tide creeps up the beach. By and by it comes — the 
richly freighted water — with the joy of fresh air and 
fresh food in every drop ; and the clam is happy. The 
entire proverb, therefore, is, " As happy as a clam in 
high water." 



6. THE CLAM'S SHELL. 



The shell is an admirable house for a body so soft, 
without a bone in it, and absolutely defenseless. So 
strong is it that a heavy weight will not crush it. So 
hard is it that the horny bill of a fish-hawk can not 
penetrate it. When they want to break the shell of 
a mollusk, birds are wont to take it in the beak, and, 
flying to a considerable height, to let it fall upon a 
rock. Besides being strong and tight when closed, 
the shell is lined with a pearly and perfectly smooth 
surface for the delicate mantle to lie upon. 

It is now known how the clam's shell grows. The 
same sea-water that furnishes lime for the skeleton of 
the coral, carries lime for the shell of the mollusk. 
The river and the creek also contain this material. It 
might be supposed that the shell would somehow grow, 
and then the tender mollusk would in some way be 
born within it. The contrary, however, is true. The 



THE CLAM S SHELL. 



33 



mollusk is hatched from an egg, and is surrounded by 
its mantle. This mantle has the wonderful power of 
taking or secreting lime from the water and turning it 
into hard shell. 

The shell begins to grow at the hinge, and increases 
as fast as the animal grows. The manner of this 
growth is like that of shingling a roof backwards from 
the ridge to the eaves. First, one little circular layer 
of shell is made at the hinge. Then as the animal 
grows, another still larger layer or shingle pushes out 
from under the first. And so on, as show r n in Fig. 3, 
each bit of growth leaving its definite line on the out- 
side of the shell, while the inside is spread over with 
a polished coat of pearl. 

This is the place to speak of the way in which the 
clam opens and closes its shell. Suppose, as in the 
figures, two shells cut 
through both valves 
so as to take a cross 
slice or section from 
each. The pieces will 
then show the way in 
which the layers of 
growth have been add- 
ed, each one extend- 




Fig. 2. 
Section of Clam. 



Fig. 3. 
Section of Mussel. 



ing from under the 

preceding one. They also show the contrivances for 

opening and closing the shell in the salt-water clam 

and in the fresh-water clam, or mussel. 

If you put a piece of rubber inside a book close 

to its hinge, the book may be closed by pressing the 

covers together, but it will not stay shut, because the 
l. c.- 3 . 



34 



LIVING CREATURES. 



rubber is elastic. Something like such a piece of 
rubber is a ligament under the hinge of the salt-water 
clam, as shown in Figure 2 (/). If you open a book 
and fasten the covers open by a rubber strap running 
over the outside of the back, you can only close it by 
force, and then it will open again as soon as you let 
it go. In the same way an elastic ligament on the 
outside of the fresh-water clam (Fig. 3 /) draws the 
valves open. In the salt-water clam the ligament pushes 
the valves open, and in the fresh-water clam the liga- 
ment pulls the valves open,, 




Little Neck Clam. 



This is just what the clams want to make them 
happy — to be kept open without effort, so that the 
nourishing water may always flow in. To close their 
valves they must put forth an effort ; and this is the 
way they work. Inside the shell two strong muscles 
pass from one valve to the other. One of these mus- 
cles (m) is shown in each of the two figures just now 
before us. It is called an adductor muscle, adductor 



SOME USES OF CLAMS. 35 

meaning that which brings to. In the figure on page 
31, the places of both the adductor muscles of the 
clam are indicated (am). 

It is easy to see why, when a clam is opened with 
a knife, the knife must be passed along the valve near 
the front and back ; this is to cut the two adductor 
muscles. Even with one of these muscles the clam 
will close its shell, as an omnibus driver shuts the door 
of his carriage by his foot-strap. 

A brother of the long clam is the round clam, some- 
times called hard-shell, or little-neck-clam. Its awk- 
ward foot is pushing out below and in front. It does 
not dig, but hitches along by means of this foot. Its 
short neck, or siphons, stretch out behind and above, 
one with a fringe of hairs to paddle the water in, and 
the other with the same kind of hairs to paddle the 
water out. 



7. SOME USES OF CLAMS. 

The largest of all shell animals is the giant-clam. 
It is produced in tropical seas, and particularly in the 
region of Sumatra. The famous Swedish naturalist 
Linnaeus, who lived more than a hundred years ago, 
describes one of these clams which weighed four hun- 
dred and ninety-eight pounds. The mollusk within the 
shell furnished a day's food for one hundred and 
twenty men. So great was the strength of its muscle, 
that by suddenly closing its valves it cut the cable of 
a ship in two. 



$6 LIVING CREATURES. 

The giant-clam is valuable to the South Sea Island- 
ers. Besides providing an important part of their 
food, its valves are of great practical use. On some 
of these islands stones are unknown. Here the na- 
tives can not make stone weapons and implements as 
did the savages of more favored regions ; hence the 
giant-clam shell is a great blessing to them. From it 
they make their knives, hammers, axes, and weapons 
of war. 

The giant-clam shell is convenient as a receptacle. 
How immense it is ! Sir Joseph Banks, who accompa- 
nied Capt. Cook on his voyage in 1768, possessed a 
monster shell, one valve of which weighed two hundred 
and twenty-two pounds, while the other valve weighed 
two hundred and eighty-five pounds. 

This shell is lined with a beautiful, white, pearl 
coating; and when the rough exterior is removed, the 
valve is something quite ornamental. Many years ago 
a giant-clam shell was presented to the Church of St. 
Sulpice in Paris. The valves of this shell are used to 
contain the holy water. 

A pleasant use of clams is observed in an old cus- 
tom called the "New England Clam Bake." It ap- 
pears that the savages who inhabited New England 
from time immemorial, were accustomed to gather at 
the sea-shore for great clam feasts. Both clams and 
oysters, as any one might conclude, cease to hold their 
valves together the moment they begin to be cooked. 
Therefore it was easy for Indians, who had no knives, 
to open their shell fish by heat. 

The modern clam bake, which is observed at several 
points on the coast, but particularly on the coast of 



SOME USES OF CLAMS. 



37 



Rhode Island, is quite closely copied from the feast of 
the Indians. These natives were accustomed, on such 
occasions, to invite to the assembly kings, chiefs, and 
other dignitaries. In this respect, as well as in the 
manner of roasting the bivalves, the custom of to-day 
follows that of the savages. The clam bake brings 







Indian Clam Bake. 



together a large party of people, and quite often is 
held in honor of distinguished persons, much like the 
barbecue of the South, at which great people and small 
people come together to feast upon ox, sheep, and 
shote, roasted whole. 

And this is the way the clam bake proceeds. A 



38 LIVING CREATURES. 

circular floor of stones, perhaps ten feet in diameter, 
is laid on the beach. On this a fire is kindled and 
fed until the stones are red hot. A layer of sea-weed 
is spread on the stones, and upon this clams are placed 
to a depth of two or three inches. Over these is scat- 
tered another cover of sea-weed. Then comes a layer 
of green corn in the husk, with potatoes and other 
vegetables. After more sea-weed, dressed chickens 
are added to the pile, and are often followed in the 
same manner by oysters and lobsters. To make the 
cooking more thorough and toothsome, a canvas or 
tarpaulin, is stretched over the steaming heap. 



8. THE OYSTER. 



When the oyster is laid open and placed by the side 
of the clam or mussel, it is at once seen that the two 
are in many points alike, and deserve to be called cous- 
ins. The shell of the oyster is bivalve — a book with 
two covers — and has the elastic ligament inside the 
hinge to spring it open. Its shingly growth is readily 
observed, but it is a rough, ugly looking shell. It 
grows narrow near the hinge, and the left valve, from 
holding fast to the sea-bottom, is much larger than the 
right valve. 

On the inside of the clam shell were pointed out 
two spots, one at each end near the back, where were 
attached the two strong adductor muscles which close 
the shell. On the white lining of the oyster shell but 
one such spot appears. It is of a dark purple color, 



THE OYSTER. 



39 



and is near the middle of the valve. The oyster has 
but one adductor muscle, and this is an immensely 
strong one. It joins the valves where the round pur- 
ple spots appear. 

The oyster animal is nearly like the clam animal. 
It is entirely soft and without bones — a true mollusk. 
The same kind of a slippery mantle lies between it and 
the inside of the shell, though this mantle does not 
completely envelop the mollusk. The oyster has no 




Oyster Shells. 

foot. What does it want of a foot? It spends nearly 
its whole life fastened to the bottom. Nature is very 
economical, and would not bestow a foot where one can 
not be used. 

When the valves are open, the mantle sometimes 
stretches down and throws its fringe beyond the lower 
or ventral edge of the shell. In the border of the 
mantle is the sense of touch ; and here are the eyes, 
if there are any ; and the ears are not far off. Oysters 
close their valves at the slightest noise ; and a brush 
of the hand over the water where they lie, when the 
light is strong, will produce the same effect. Along 



40 LIVING CREATURES. 

the lower part of the shell lie the four gill-plates with 
which the animal breathes, or takes air from the water. 
Above the gills is the adductor muscle. Try your 
fork in it and see how hard it is. The oysterman 
must cut this muscle before he can pry the valves 
apart. He calls it the heart, but it is not a heart. 
This latter organ, however, lies near by. It beats like 
a human heart, only much slower — from one to fifteen 
throbs in a minute. At the front end of the gills is 
the mouth of this headless animal. It is surrounded 
by minute hairs, or cilia. When the oyster is open and 
breathing, the cilia all along the gills and about the 
mouth are in motion, pushing the water into the 
mouth. 

The oyster has a small friend which, until recently, 
was thought to be an enemy. It is the oyster crab, a 
greenish little creature when alive, but becoming red 
when cooked. It is a dainty morsel, and was so re- 
garded by George Washington. This little visitor, 
about a half inch in diameter, walks in and out of 
the oyster's house at pleasure ; for strangely enough, 
the door seems to be always open to her. Why 

should the oyster, usually so 
shy, admit this intruder? 

It is found that the crab is a 

messmate of the oyster, and 

comes in to take her meals with 

oyster crab. her hostess, Mrs. Oyster. The 

inflowing water which feeds the 

oyster feeds the crab. Then it is a very nice thing for 

Crab to be inclosed in oyster castle, when hunted by 

her fierce enemies. 




THE OYSTER. 4I 

The oyster's food, like the clam's, includes minute 
animals and plants visible only by the aid of the mi- 
croscope. The same water which brings these contains 
larger bodies which the oyster can not eat. This 
coarser fare suits little Crab, who devours it in peace 
and joy, dropping many fine crumbs which its hostess 
relishes. So the presence of the crab is a benefit to 
the oyster; and when it entertains a crab, the oyster is 
likely to be plump and happy. 

PART 2. 

To many people the oyster appears most interest- 
ing when it lies on the half shell, or when it floats in 
a milk-white stew, or when it gives forth the pleasant 
odors of the frying pan. Thousands of years ago, sav- 
age men found that oysters were good for food. On 
the shore of the ocean, they have left immense heaps 
of shells to testify to their fondness for these delicious 
mollusks. At one point, on the coast of Maine, lies a 
pile of these shells measuring eight million cubic feet. 
Oysters in those far off years, as these remains show, 
were twice as large as those of the present time. One 
of them has been found which measured fifteen inches 
in length. 

The American people of to-day are great eaters of 
oysters. In a single year, on our coasts, there arc 
taken and sold more than twenty-two million bushels 
of these bivalves, making over six billions three hun- 
dred millions of oysters, by count. Seventy-five millions 
are exported to foreign countries, leaving more than 
six billions to be eaten by Americans — which figures 



42 LIVING CREATURES. 

an average of at least a hundred oysters to each man, 
woman, and child. This does not mean that each gets 
his hundred. 

How so many are produced and gathered will be an 
interesting question to answer. The oyster is ready to 
be eaten when it is about four or five years old. Like 






Fig. 4. Fig. 5. Fig. 6. I'V }| : ,1 

Growth of Oyster from the Egg. | J Jj 

the chicken and the clam, it comes from an egg. wM 
The mother oyster between the months of May W 
and September produces over nine millions Fig - 7 - 
of eggs. After lying in the folds of the mantle for 
a while, these eggs are sent into the water where the 
wee things in them at once begin to grow. 

The perfect egg, greatly magnified in the illustra- 
tion, is a five hundredth part of an inch in diameter 
(Fig. 4). When it is three hours old it assumes a 
different shape (Fig. 5). When it begins to swim it is 
called a "spat" (Fig. 6). It swims by the motion of 
its cilia or hairs. When it is nearly ready to settle 
upon the bottom (Fig. 7), the shell has begun to grow 
from its mantle, and the cilia about where its head 
would be, if it were fortunate enough to have a head, 
are the paddles by which it scuds about. 

Within six days from the time it left its mother's 
mantle, the spat will find a congenial place on the bot- 
tom, fasten itself to an old oyster shell or an old boot, 
and there remain for the rest of its life. Although such 



THE OYSTER. 



43 



an immense number of eggs is produced by a single 
oyster, it is believed that not one in a million of eggs 
ever comes to a full-grown mollusk. A single fish will 
devour a million of eggs at a mouthful, to say nothing 
of the poor, innocent little spats that make nice fish- 
food. The mother herself swallows eggs without 
knowing it. Still there are enough spats saved to 
make our six billions of oysters. 

In their natural state, oysters live and grow in beds. 
These beds can only flourish in small bays, coves, and 
inlets of the sea coast, protected from the fury of the 
ocean waves and from storms. 
The water must be neither too 
cold nor too warm, and must 
contain an abundance of mi- 
croscopical food. The places 
where spats are cradled and 
reared, therefore, are neces- 
sarily few. There are two 
kinds of oyster beds, the nat- 
ural and the artificial. In the 
natural beds, where the ani- 
mals are left to themselves, they 
spats fasten to the older oysters, 
them there is much waste. 

The artificial beds are those in which spats are col- 
lected, and in which young oysters called ''seeds" are 
transplanted and grow for market. During the spawn- 
ing season, near where the eggs or spawn of old oys- 
ters are wont to drift, a bed is prepared for collecting 
the spats. Oyster shells arc usually thrown on the 
bottom for the spats to fasten to, though the little 




Oyster Seed. 

grow in heaps. The 
and in separating 



44 LIVING CREATURES. 

swimmers will stick to a stone or to a piece of w r ood 
or crockery. Forty of them will cleave to one oyster 
shell. When they are as large as a quarter of a dollar 
they are termed "seeds" or " blisters." 

They may now be raked up and carried to empty 
beds where they are scattered at the rate of a bushel 
to about forty square feet. Here they grow for four 
or five years, when they are ready for market. 



9. OYSTER-CATCHING. 



Oysters are caught by a bird called the oyster 
catcher, by star-fish, soft crabs, drill-fish, and conchs. 
All these plunder for their own benefit. Some of 
them, as the star-fish, are very troublesome to the 
growing beds, and the oystermen are accustomed, at 
certain times of the year, to rake over the bed and 
capture a multitude of these enemies. 

Leaving all the remaining enemies mentioned to be 
looked up in the Cyclopaedia, let us attend to one of 
them, and see how a little sound knowledge is useful 
in any kind of business. The star-fish, which belongs 
to a lower branch of animals than the oyster, has its 
mouth in the center from which the five arms radiate. 
The arms are made of limestone sections joined by a 
tough membrane, so that they can bend and grasp the 
prey. They are also covered with sharp spines, and 
on this account are not themselves a pleasant prey 
for other animals. 

The star-fish moves by filling ever so many little 



OYSTER-CATCHING. 



45 



tubes attached to its rays or arms. By placing the 
tubes upon any surface and drawing the water from 
them, they are made to stick fast, by suction. The 
animal sometimes grows to a diameter of more than 
two feet. He grasps the oyster in his five arms, and 
by the suckers around his mouth breaks the thin edge 




Oyster Fleet. 



of the shell. Then he runs into the shell the end of 
his stomach, and sucks away all that part of the oyster 
which he most relishes. The star-fish is to be com- 
mended for his good taste. 

Some years ago, oystermen were accustomed to catch 
these depredators with tongs and dredges, and after 
filling their boats, to break the star-fish in pieces and 
throw the pieces overboard into the water. They did 
not then know what they have since learned, — that 
many of the pieces of a star-fish will grow into com- 





46 LIVING CREATURES. 

plete animals. So that by dividing these mischievous 
cr-eatures they were only multiplying them. 

The business of taking oysters for human use com- 
mences in September, when the spawning is over and 
the animals are plump. A sloop is brought to anchor 
over the bed, and small boats containing men are sent 
out in various directions. First, the oysters are taken 
with double rakes or tongs, and are thrown into the 

little boats which convey 
them to the sloop. When 
the rakes and tongs have 
| done all they can, a dredge 
flfftf «?$SSt^ is thrown out from the^ sloop 
and dragged over the bot- 
torn until the bed is thor- 
oughly cleaned. 

The sloop, having been 
loaded with from two hun- 
dred to eight hundred bush- 
star-fish, i r i 
els of oysters, is run into the 

mouth of some river or creek, where the water is 
partly fresh, to "give the oysters a drink," as the fish- 
ermen say. Here the load is thrown overboard in 
shallow water, when the bivalves open, the water runs 
in, and they get their "drink." In this way, it is 
claimed, they cleanse themselves from the rubbish of 
the sea, get rid of their salt, become white, and ap- 
pear suddenly to fatten. The fattening, however, is 
only a temporary puffing up with water. 

When finally raised from their temporary resting 
place, they are disposed of in different ways. Many 
families near at hand purchase each from ten to twenty 




OYSTER-CATCHING. 47 

bushels, which are packed away with sea-weed in the 
cellar for winter use. Those that remain till spring 
are quite likely to be alive and well. Large quantities 
of oysters in the shell are shipped to Europe. 

For use in the interior of the country, the shells are 
packed in barrels, the large valve down so as to retain 
all the liquor of the animal. A large business is car- 
ried on in "raw oysters," or those w r hich are taken 
from the shells and canned. The opening of oysters 
is something of a trade in itself. An expert opener 
will take out thirty thousand oysters in a day. The 
raw oysters are separated according to size into " me- 
diums, " " standards, " and "selects, " and are packed 
in tin quart cans, or in gallon kegs. 

The New York oysters bear many fancy names. 
"Saddle-rocks" came originally from a reef of that 
name on the north shore of Long Island. Twenty- 
five of them have been known to fill a bushel. The 
bed, however, was exhausted more than forty years 
ago, and now any good, large oyster may be called a 
"saddle-rock." "Blue Points," which are small but 
of fine flavor, and sought for eating on the half-shell, 
are from shallow bays along the southern shore of 
Long Island. " Shrewsburys " grow at the mouth of 
a river of that name near Sandy Hook. 

The oysters of the Pacific coast are exceedingly 
small, and are served in restaurants by the hundred 
or half hundred. A Californian visiting New York 
stepped into an eating-house and ordered a hundred 
fried oysters. He was surprised when he saw spread 
before him a full hundred Shrewsburys, a dozen of 
which make a hearty meal. 



48 LIVING CREATURES. 



IO. PEARLS AND PEARL-MAKERS. 

In the law book of the ancient Hebrews, which is 
called the Talmud, is found a story which illustrates 
the value of the pearl. 

When Abraham came near to Egypt, he locked 
Sarah his wife in a chest, that none might behold her 
beauty. But when he came to the place of paying cus- 
toms, the officer said to him, "Pay custom." And he 
said, ' 'I will pay the custom. " They said to him, ' Thou 
carriest clothes ; " and he said, "I will pay for clothes." 
Then they said, "Thou carriest gold; " and he replied, 
"I will pay for gold." 

On this they cried, "Surely thou bearest fine silk; " 
and he answered, "I will pay custom for the finest 
silk." Then they said, "Surely it must be pearls that 
thou takest with thee ; " and he only answered, " I will 
pay for pearls." As they knew nothing more valuable 
than pearls, they demanded that the box should be 
opened, in order that they might determine what con- 
cealed treasure it was for which the owner was willing 
to pay custom sufficient for fine pearls. 

And the box was opened, when they found that 
nothing in the opinion of Abraham was too costly or 
pure to be compared with his wife Sarah. 

It is a singular fact that pearls, regarded by some as 
more beautiful than diamonds, are made by certain kinds 
of clams and oysters. These are called pearl mussels and 
pearl oysters. The lining of these shells, called nacre 
(naker) or mother-of-pearl, is itself beautiful. The 
mantle of the mollusk makes the shell. The fringe of 



PEARLS AND PEARL-MAKERS. 49 

the mantle produces the outside, and from the body of 
the mantle grows the rainbow lining. This wonderful 
mantle, also, makes the pearl. 

For a long time it was supposed that the pearl mus- 
sel and pearl oyster mold their gems about grains of 
sand, or produce them when diseased. It is now the 
opinion that some little animal gets into the mussel 




Pearl Oysters. 

or oyster and irritates the mantle. There is then let 
out of the mantle a small sphere or drop of nacre 
which increases layer by layer, until it reaches the size, 
it may be, of a large bean. Both the pearl oyster of 
the ocean and certain species of the fresh-water mussel 
occasionally make pearls. 

One reason for the invasion of Britain by the Ro- 
mans was said to be the attraction of its pearl fisher- 
ies. In Irish and Scotch rivers large numbers of mus- 
sels have been found containing pearls. In the year 

1865 these rivers yielded sixty thousand dollars' worth. 
l. c.- 4 . 



50 LIVING CREATURES. 

The Queen paid two hundred dollars for a Scotch 
pearl. It is also said that one of the pearls that adorn 
the royal crown of Great Britain was found by the 
waiting lady of Catharine, the wife of Henry VIII. 
She was fishing, and either hooked up or picked up 
the mussel which bore the gem. 

In 1857, g^at excitement was created by the discov- 
ery of a very large pearl in Notch Brook near Pater- 
son, New Jersey. A shoemaker named Howell was 
the fortunate finder, but he had ruined the jewel by 
cooking the mussel that contained it. A carpenter of 
the name of Quackenbush, heard of this good fortune 
and took to pearl-hunting. After wading about for 
several days, he picked up a mussel containing a pearl 
five eighths of an inch in diameter, for which a jeweler 
in New York paid a thousand dollars. It was after- 
ward sold in Paris for five thousand dollars. 

PART 2. 

Rosy and green pearls, and those of a fine luster, 
are preferred. Pearls are classed as clear, half-clear, 
and sand-pearls. In China, mussels are kept in acqua- 
riums and are made to manufacture pearl ornaments. 
The natives make of tin foil little, flat, stamped images 
for idols. These they insert within the valves of a liv- 
ing mussel, where they remain for two or three months. 
At the end of this period the images, still retaining 
their original features, are covered with a coating of 
pearl, and are then worn as pendants. 

The most valuable of the gems we are describing are 
taken from the pearl oyster, which lives in certain fa- 



PEARLS AND PEARL-MAKERS. 5 I 

vored places in the sea. The finest pearls are found 
near the islands of the Persian Gulf. Here the ancient 
Macedonians gathered many jewels. The largest fish- 
eries are carried on at the island of Ceylon. The fish- 
ing grounds are in control of the British government. 
The best pearls are yielded by oysters four years old. 
It is said that an oyster containing a gem will die at 
seven, and the pearl, of course, will be lost. 

The fishing season occurs early in the spring, and lasts 
about six weeks. During this time the shore of the is- 
land is whitened with the tents of native pearl-fishers. 
A group of boats, each containing ten men, reaches the 
oyster banks at sunrise. At the firing of a signal gun, 
the diving commences. The divers work in pairs. One 
remains in the boat holding a rope. This rope is fast- 
ened to the other, who dives ; and to him, also, a sink- 
stone, weighing forty pounds, is attached. 

The greatest danger to which the diver is exposed, is 
the shark, which has a passion for divers' flesh. To 
fight this monster, the man takes down with him spikes 
made of iron-wood. Before he is let down, his clothes 
are stripped from him by a sort of priest or shark- 
charmer, who performs over him some strange service. 
Should the shark, however, come to attack him, the 
diver does not depend upon the incantations of the 
charmer, but fights with his spikes and stirs up the mud 
to blind the shark. 

When the gun fires again at noon, the fleet returns, 
and the oysters are divided into four heaps, of which 
one goes to the fishermen for their wages, and the re- 
maining three are sold at auction. The shells are 
opened and the pearls arc sorted by sifting them through 



52 



LIVING CREATURES. 




Drilling- Pearls. 



baskets having different sized 
holes. Some of them are drilled 
with holes for beads. The most 
common size of fine oriental 
pearls is from one and a half to 
three times that of a pea. 

The pearl which is nearest 
perfect is round or pear-shaped. 
It is free from speck or flaw, of delicate texture and 
clear, almost transparent white color, with a soft gloss 
and irridescence. The Shah or King of Persia, in 1633, 
paid for a single pearl sixty-five thousand dollars. This 
jewel had belonged to a Sultan who purchased it with 
three hundred pure-blood Arab horses. 

The most beautiful pearl now known is kept in a 
museum at Moscow. It was taken more than fifty 
years ago and weighs ninety grains. The largest pearl 
in existence belongs to Mr. Beresford Hope, of Lon- 
don. This magnificent gem weighs three ounces, is 
four and a half inches in circumference, and is valued 
at sixty thousand dollars. 



THE SNAIL. 



II. THE SNAIL. 



53 



The school-boy of three centuries ago must have 
been a very slow creeper, or else his school was en- 
tirely unattractive. Shakespeare, in describing the 
seven ages, says: 

"Then the whining school-boy, with his satchel 
And shining morning face, creeping like snail 
Unwillingly to school." 

Probably there are no such boys in these days. But 
we have snails, and by studying them we may know 
at least one characteristic of the boy of three hundred 
years ago. 

The snail deserves more notice than it has been 
accustomed to receive. It is far more intelligent than 
any animal before spoken of. It has been tamed, and 
trained to come out of its shell, when called. In Europe 
it -is regarded as a nice article of food. In this country 
it has never been used very much for the table, al- 
though, in this respect, it is rapidly gaining friends. 

The snail is like the clam and the oyster, in two gen- 
eral features. It has a soft body without a bone, and 
it has a hard shell to cover the body. It is a mollusk 
because it is soft ; but it is not a bivalve, because its 
shell does not divide into two valves. It has but one 
shell, and is, therefore, a univalve. This shell, or one 
nearly like it, must be looked at a moment, and its 
different parts learned. 

The figure is that of an Illinois pond snail. It is 
turned, coiled, or whirled into a spire like the point 
of a gimlet. Its general form is that of a cone. The 



54 



LIVING CREATURES. 



cone is composed of whirls or whorls. The largest of 
these is the body whorl (bw). Those above the body 
are simply whorls which together form the spire (sp). 
The opening at the base {in) is the mouth, the edges 

of which roll back on either 
side. The name for each of 
these edges of the mouth is lip. 
The lip on the right side of 
the mouth — in some of the 
snail's large relations a very 
broad lip — is known by its sim- 
ple name. That on the left 
side is designated as the colu- 
mella lip. Carefully break in, 
on one side, the body whorl of 
a common snail, and you will 
see a little column rising from 
the inside of this lip to the 
apex — like the column of a 
spiral staircase. This little col- 
umn is the columella, and its 
outward fold is the columella 
lip. The lips of the snail's 
shell are short and roll out 
scarcely at all. The shell itself 
shows that it has grown by constant additions, or sec- 
tions, which have left their lines on the outside. 

Nothing could be more perfectly contrived for its 
uses than this shell. When the animal retires within 
it, the body must slip very easily up the spiral way 
toward the apex. And when it is out and slowly 
moving, what could be more compact and easily bal- 




Figr. 8. Pond Snail Shell. 



THE SNAIL. 55 

anced on the snail's back than this cone with nearly 
all its weight at the base ! If the shell breaks, the 
animal throws a sticky fluid across the fracture, and 
soon a horny patch has grown as good as new. 

The snail is more complete in its formation than the 
oyster. The oyster has no foot. The snail has a 
foot running along on the under side of its body. The 
oyster has no head. The snail has a head. The or- 
gans of the oyster are scattered about — the mouth near 
the hinge, the feelers, 
ears, and eyes on the 
edge of the mantle. 

The snail's senses are 
gathered in its head. 
The mouth, eyes, feel- 
ers, and smelling or- 
gans are there. The 
snail has a real mouth 
with hard jaws ; and a 
long tongue like a rib- 
bon, covered with teeth which work against the upper 
jaw and crunch the weeds it feeds upon. The oyster 
is water-breathing, the snail is air-breathing. It has a 
little sac which answers for lungs ; and the pond snail, 
working on the water bottom, comes to the top occa- 
sionally, sets free the bubble of air it has used, takes 
a fresh bubble, and returns to its work in the water. 

The snail has been slandered because it is slow. It 
is fast enough ; faster than the oyster, which never 
moves from its seat. And then it goes as swiftly as 
it can, so that no one can charge it with being lazy. 
When, too, it is considered that this creeper has but 




Pond Snail. 




$6 LIVING CREATURES. 

one foot, and that, when it moves, it must carry its 
house on its back, it must be pronounced a hero. 

Snails have a period of remaining torpid, when they 
draw themselves within their shells, covering the mouth 
with a sticky liquid which hardens by exposure. Thus 

they remain, in temper- 
ate climates during the 
winter, and in torrid 
climates during the 
very hottest weather. 
Some of the snail's 
larger relations close 
Land snaii, the mouth of the shell 

with a cover attached 
to the foot. The cover fits close into the mouth. 

The shell of the pond snail, with its spire raised con- 
siderably above the body whorl, is easily distinguished 
from that of the land snail, whose spire is very short, 
and whose body whorl is very large. The mollusks 
themselves differ in some respects. The pond snail 
has two feelers or horns, the land snail has four, — two 
above and two below. The eyes of the pond snail are 
at the base of its feelers, while the eyes of the other 
are at the end of its upper feelers or horns. 

Snails can live long without food. In 1846, a famous 
specimen was brought from Egypt and placed in the 
British Museum. It was supposed to be dead, but 
revived after it had lain four years without eating. 
There were reasons to believe that it was alive ; warm 
water was applied and it appeared. Another one in 
this country, from Lower California, lived in confine- 
ment and fasted for six years. 



THE SNAIL S GAY RELATIONS. 57 



12. THE SNAILS GAY RELATIONS. 

I have seen 
A curious child who dwelt upon a tract 
Of inland ground, applying to his ear 
The convolutions of a smooth-lipped shell ; 
To which, in silence hushed, his very soul 
Listened intensely ; for from within were heard 
Murmurings, whereby the monitor expressed 
Mysterious union with its native sea. 

— Wordsworth. 

Very likely the child whom Wordsworth saw had in 
his hand one of those shells which are called porcelain 
shells, or cowries. I remember well the first time I 
placed one to my ear. I really thought, as the shell 
had come from the ocean, it had brought with it a little 
of the ocean roar confined in its convolutions or whorls. 
It destroys this little bubble of romance, to find that 
the hand bent into a cup and held to the ear produces 
nearly the same effect. 

The cowry animal is essentially like the snail. The 
cowry shell is quite different from the snail shell in 
shape and appearance. It is almost precisely like a 
coffee berry. It is without the spire of the cone, and 
has only the body whorl, with an opening running its 
whole length, thus forming its mouth. Like most of the 
ornamental shell animals, the cowry has more of a foot 
than its sober little cousin the snail has ; and attached 
to this foot is a trap-door which closes the mouth of 
the shell, when the mollusk retires into it. 

Exquisitely beautiful arc these cowries, covered with 
dark spots, and equal in finish to the finest porcelain. 



58 LIVING CREATURES. 

The wonder is that the shell is produced from the 
mantle of the mollusk; and the spots, or eyes, are 
painted by a coloring matter secreted by the mantle 
precisely where the spots occur on the shell. Cowries 
are of different sizes and shades. The mollusk is quite 
as beautiful as its shell. 

You can not wonder that uncivilized peoples have a 
passion for ornamental shells. A small cowry found in 
the Pacific Ocean is used by African tribes for money. 
Great numbers of money cowries are shipped by En- 
gland to Africa, where they are sold to the natives in 
exchange for their products. These shells are the 
common money of the natives of Bengal, Siam, and 
Hindostan. 

The first settlers of this country found the Indians 
using shells for money. These natives cut the white 
and the black shells in pieces, and strung them on a 
cord or belt, which was then called wampum. The 
squaws tied shells to the shoes they wore when danc- 
ing, to produce a rattling, tinkling sound. The only 
piano the Indians had consisted of strings of shells 
hung loosely around their lodges, and played upon by 
the fingers of the wind. The ancient Athenians made 
use of shells for ballots, upon which they inscribed 
their votes. In the Friendly Islands the orange cowry 
is worn only by persons of the highest rank. 

PART 2. 

Who has not seen the large, reddish conch shell? 
Formerly the farmers on the coast used this southern 
shell for a horn to call their workmen to dinner. The 



THE SNAIL'S GAY RELATIONS. 



59 




Smooth-lipped Shell. 



trumpet shell is another noisy one, with a long - spire. 
Found in West India and Panama waters, the sailors 
call it an augur shell. This shell is supposed to have 



6o 



LIVING CREATURES. 



first suggested to uncivilized man the idea of the instru- 
ment called the trumpet. The spiny murex is the 
military horn of certain African tribes. 

In ancient Palestine bee-keepers employed the conch 
to make a whistling or hissing noise to entice their 
bees. Says Isaiah: "And it shall come to pass that 
the Lord shall hiss for the fly that is in the uttermost 
parts of the rivers of Egypt, and for the bee that is in 




Cassis. 
Money Cowries 



Voluta. 
Conch Shells. 



the land of Assyria." With the trumpet shell the 
Italian herdsman calls his cattle, and the Welsh farmer 
wakes the silence of his mountain wilds. 

Among the collections is seen a rough, though very 
attractive shell, covered with spines or horns. This is 
the murex. The mollusk to which it belongs is fero- 
cious, and attacks other mollusks. The shell is that 
which was used by the ancient Syrians and Greeks in 
the preparation of the Tyrian purple. The story is 
that the purple coloring matter contained in the shell 



THE SNAIL'S GAY RELATIONS. 6 1 

was first brought to notice by a dog, who broke a shell 
with his teeth, leaving the stain on his lips. With 
this purple the Babylonians dyed the robes they 
dressed their idols with ; and with it Moses tinted the 
furniture of the tabernacle. Wool dyed with Tyrian 
purple sold, during the reign of the Emperor Au- 
gustus, for one hundred and eighty dollars a pound. 

From the cassis shell the rich cameos employed in 
jewelry are cut. The delicate fineness and blush of 
the substance makes it valuable, but the cost of the 
cameo is mainly in the cutting. 

On account of their scarcity, and of the beautiful 
coverings worn by the snail's kin, they have sometimes 
commanded large prices. As late as 1865, rare cowries 
sold for two hundred dollars each. Cones, valued for 
fine polish and rich markings, brought from sixty to 
two hundred dollars. In 1876, the gay voluta, spotted 
with orange and white, sold for fifty dollars ; before 
that date it had cost two hundred dollars. 

Of what possible use to these tender inhabitants are 
the rich and gay colorings and luster of the whorls, or 
the delicate tints of the lips? These gorgeous clothes 
are, in their natural state, inclosed in a rough outside 
crust, which is no more handsome than the shuck of a 
cocoa-nut. Perhaps these beauties of shell grow to 
please human eyes. Perhaps they are designed to 
teach that what is good and beautiful in character lies 
beneath the surface. As Wordsworth again says : 

True beauty dwells in deep retreats, 

Whose veil is unremoved 
Till heart with heart in concord beats, 

And the lover is beloved. 



62 LIVING CREATURES. 



13. LIVING PINCHERS. 

In most parts of the country, boys need no intro- 
duction to crawfish ; and in the large city, or near the 
sea-coast, any one may at times see lobsters at the 
fish-market. Crawfish and lobsters are almost pre- 
cisely alike. Indeed, the crawfish is sometimes called 
the fresh-water lobster. It is about five inches long, 
and swims near the bottom of rivers and ponds. The 
lobster is about ten inches long, and moves about in 
the shallow waters of the sea-coast. 

To shake hands with either of these queer-looking 
creatures is not the most pleasant way of forming their 
acquaintance. Many a stranger has thought their 
grasp quite too affectionate. In fact, their grip is a 
pinch, and their hands, such as they have, are pinch- 
ers, and are armed with ugly teeth. Boys who have 
once been pinched have learned to pick them up by 
the back, so as to handle them without injury. It 
would be well to hold one in this way long enough to 
see how it is fitted for the battle of life — to get its 
food, and to fight its enemies. 

The lobster and the crawfish have no true bones in 
their bodies. The body is divided into three main 
parts, called the head, the thorax or breastplate, and 
the abdomen. This last part is again made up of seven 
pieces or joints. The whole body is covered by a hard 
outside crust. The animals are, therefore, called crus- 
taceans. The crust or shell is of a black or dark green 
color when the animal is alive. Those lobsters that 
lie quietly in the fish-market, are dead, and have been 



LIVING PINCHERS. 



63 



partly cooked. Cooking, you will observe, turns the 
color of the shell red. 

This creature seems to have legs in abundance. It 
is a great improvement upon the snail that has no legs. 
Attached to the thorax are eight pairs of limbs, the 
first three pairs being used as jaws, and called foot-jaws; 
the next pair are the great claws; and the four pairs 
behind the claws are the walking legs. Six pairs of 




American Lobster. 



smaller limbs are fastened to six of the joints of the 
abdomen, and are used as paddles for swimming. They 
are called swimmerets. 

The last joint of the abdomen, or the tail-fin, works 
back and forth, and helps the animal to swim back- 
wards, when it so desires. The two great claw r s are not 
precisely alike. The more clumsy one has coarse teeth, 
and is used to anchor the animal or hold it firmly to 
some object, while the other has fine teeth and is used 



64 LIVING CREATURES. 

for seizing and crushing the prey. Protected by its 
hard shell, and armed with these huge pinchers, the 
lobster ought to fight pretty well. And so it does. 
Indeed, it is so quarrelsome and ferocious that the fish- 
erman is obliged to fasten the claws with pieces of 
wood, even while the animal is waiting to be boiled. 

The crustaceans have a definite head, which is well 
provided with eyes, ears, mouth and other organs. 
From the sides of the head reach out two long whip- 
like things, which are feelers, with which the animals 
lash the water and touch the objects they meet. On 
the top of the head is a pair of smaller feelers, at the 
base of which are the ears. 

We hunted about the mantle of the oyster for eyes. 
See what eyes the crustaceans have, standing out on 
knobs or stocks. Unfortunately they are very obscure 
in the picture. Besides being so prominent, they are 
not common single eyes, but each stock has many sin- 
gle eyes packed together. Well fitted, then, the lob- 
ster and crawfish seem to be for moving on the muddy 
bottom, for catching and eating the dead fish and other 
animal matter upon which they live, and for fighting 
away their enemies. 

Of course the crustaceans are water-breathing ani- 
mals, and have gills in which the blood and the air of 
the water meet. These gills are found at the places 
where the legs join the body. The young are hatched 
from eggs. To make room for their growth, the shell 
or crust is shed, or molted, as many as six times dur- 
ing the first year, a larger crust coming with each 
change. 

In the spring the crustaceans lay their eggs, which 



CRABS. 65 

adhere to their swimmerets. A single lobster lays 
about twenty thousand eggs. After the young are 
hatched, they cling to the swimming legs of their 
mothers until they are about a third of an inch long, 
when, with bright blue eyes and a pair of small feet 
for swimming, they dodge about in the water at a 
lively rate. At this period of their existence they are 
dainty food for large fishes. At three months of age 
they acquire all the parts of the grown animal, and 
then settle down on the bottom like the old people, 
to catch and to be caught. 



14. CRABS. 



Take away the rear part or abdomen of the lobster 
and you have the crab. There are some different ar- 
rangements about the mouth, and the crab swims in 
the water instead of gliding near the bottom, as its 
near relation, the lobster, does. The soft-shell crabs 
of the sea are considered delicate eating, but every one 
does not know how to account for the name they bear. 

The soft-shell crab has a hard crust for a covering, 
as its near friends have. But from time to time it 
sheds its shell. When the old shell has been thrown 
off, it is some days before the new shell becomes hard. 
During this period the crab is very tender, and is de- 
licious food ; and on this account it receives its name — 
soft-shell. It is, however, a common crab. 

The whole family of lobsters and crabs is composed 
l. c— 5. 



66 



LIVING CREATURES. 



of ludicrous members, but the drollest of all is the 
hermit crab. It is really more of a lobster than a 
crab, for it has quite a long abdomen, while the crab 
has scarcely any. This hermit wears a good shell on 
the main part of his body ; but unfortunately the 
hinder part is naked and tender, and is exposed to 
attack. 

Now he will surely die if he can not inclose his del- 
icate part in the shell of some mollusk. To find such 




Common Edible Crab. 

a covering it is necessary for him to be a thief and 
a robber. Having found a convenient shell of sufficient 
size, and having dragged the innocent occupant out, 
the hermit pokes in his tail-part and hooks it fast to 
the inside of the shell by two small feet, which grow 
out from the end of the tail, seemingly for this very 
purpose. 

When the lobster grows too big for his shell he 



LEEUWENHOEK. 



6 7 



sheds it, and gets a new one. But the hermit crab 
occupies the dead shell of another ; what shall he do 
v/hen he outgrows his shelter As he is often kept 
in an aquarium his pranks 
have been carefully watched. 

He hunts about until he / 
finds some mollusk like a 
snail, inclosed in its house. 
He turns the shell over and 
over, as if calculating on its 
size. He pokes a foot with- 
in to see who is there. If 
he concludes that the house 
is good enough and large enough for him, he jerks 
out its tenant and himself jumps in — all in a moment. 




Hermit Crab. 



T5. LEEUWENHOEK. 

The old town of Delfth in Holland is associated 
with a familiar event in American history. It was 
from the harbor of this town — from Delfth Haven — 
that the Pilgrim Fathers, in 1620, embarked on the 
Speedwell and the Mayflower to sail to America. 
Another event adds a new interest to Delfth. 

It was here that, in 1632, a boy was born who be- 
came one of the great discoverers that used the mi- 
croscope. His name was Anthony van Leeuwenhoek 
(pronounced Luh'wen hook). As his surname does 
not slip easily from an American tongue, he may be 



68 LIVING CREATURES. 

called simply Anthony. The education of Anthony 
was very imperfect. He never graduated from college, 
but he seems to have made the most of his limited 
opportunities. 

Only a few years before the Mayflower landed its 
shivering passengers on Plymouth Rock, and the Half 
Moon anchored at the mouth of the Hudson, the tel- 
escope and the microscope were invented. The prin- 
cipal part of both these instruments is the glass lens. 
To prepare lenses, and get their shape exactly right, 
was at that time a great labor. The lenses must be 
slowly ground and polished. This art was sometimes 
learned by bright boys, of whom Anthony was one. 
And he became a lens-grinder. 

Those who use the microscope at the present day, 
find in it a most delightful and fascinating employ- 
ment. With it they examine things other people have 
seen and told about, and find, in going over these dis- 
coveries, great amusement. How much more enjoy- 
ment, then, must those have had who, with the mi- 
croscope, for the first time, discovered these things. 

The opening of the great world of little things 
created great excitement. Everybody who could buy 
one, purchased a microscope. The grinding of lenses 
was a lively business. To this work Anthony devoted 
both his energies and his wits. Soon he found out 
how to make much better lenses than any other could 
construct, insomuch that he was regarded as one of 
the inventors of the microscope. 

Anthony did more than work at his lenses. He 
himself used the improved lens, in searching out the 
new and wonderful things in nature. And what did 



LEEUWENHOEK. 



6 9 



he find that was new? "The House I Live In" gives 
an account of the voyage which a drop of blood makes 
when it leaves the heart, passes through the arteries 
to the muscles and bones, and returns to the heart 
through the veins. 

The credit of discovering this trip of the drop of 
blood is due to an English physician, William Harvey, 
who died when Anthony was twenty-five years old. 

But there was one part of the journey of the blood 
which Dr. Harvey did not explain. 
When the red traveler reaches its 
destination, how does it leave the 
artery, get through the muscles, 
and jump into the veins ? 

This question Anthony answered 
by the use of his microscope. He 
found the minute capillary (or 
hair) tubes which convey the blood 
from the arteries to every part of 
the muscles and bones, and throw 
it into the veins, so that it may 
go back to the heart and lungs. 
About the time of this discovery, 
Anthony received a visit from 
Peter the Great of Russia, who was delighted to see, 
through the microscope, the circulation of the blood in 
the tail of an eel. 

He discovered that the human hair is solid and not 
a tube; that cochineal, which produces red and purple 
dyes, is an insect and not a seed as people supposed ; 
that the grubs, or maggots, which appear upon spoiled 
meat are hatched from eggs, and are not sponta- 




Improved Microscope. 



70 LIVING CREATURES. 

neously born from decaying substance. He proved 
that every living thing comes from a living parent of 
the same kind. He found the compound eyes of some 
insects; the beautiful scales on the wings of butterflies: 
the spinners and poison claws of the spider. 

In the gutters of the house roof, there is nearly 
always collected more or less moss or dirt mixed with 
leaves. Of course, during the absence of rain, this 
litter becomes very dry. Now if a pinch of this dust 
be moistened in water, and placed under a microscope, 
pretty soon little animals, no larger than the head of 
a pin, appear swimming and dancing about, as antic 
as pollywogs. They are called rotifers or wheel-bear- 
ers, because they have, at the place where the mouth 
should be expected, a wheel fringed with lively hairs 
with which they draw in their invisible prey. Entirely 
dry, like grains of sand, they may exist for a long 
time, and wake into activity when wet. 

These wheel-bearers were first brought to light by 
Anthony van Leeuwenhoek. Many other things, also, 
did he discover with his microscope, and many things 
about such things as had already been discovered. 



1 6. SPIDERS. 



One is struck with a certain resemblance between 
crab and spider. The latter has eight walking legs, of 
which the first pair from the head are used for feelers. 
They are jointed like the legs of crab and lobster, and 




SPIDERS. 71 

it is said that the leg of the spider will grow out again, 
should one or two joints be lost. The spider is com- 
monly regarded as an insect. But it is without some 
very important characteristics which belong to insects, 
as will be seen in the chapter on the fly. 

The spider's jaws are a little like the lobster's pinch- 
ers. They are furnished with rough teeth for crunch- 
ing flies and other food, and are armed at the end, 
each with a sharp claw which opens and 
shuts upon the jaw, like the blade of a 
jack-knife. These jaws are excellent 
tools for the butcher's work of the spi- 
der, and are deadly weapons in the fight. 
Through the claw runs a tube carrying 
poisonous liquid which flows into the 

1 A Spider's Jaws. 

wound, when a bite is inflicted. The 

poison, however, affects the human being scarcely more 

than the poison of the mosquito. 

Eight eyes on the back of the head furnish the ani- 
mal with abundant power of sight. As to ears, search 
for them and you will not find them. The creature 
hears — there is no doubt about that. She loves a tink- 
ling sound, enjoys the strains of music, sometimes let- 
ting herself down from the ceiling to hear it. Out of 
her snug den she will run at the buzzing of a fly, or 
wasp or tuning fork. Perhaps the hairs on their legs 
have the faculty of hearing ; for when listening to 
sounds, these hairs are raised, just as some animals 
erect their ears. 

The spider breathes by tubes running through differ- 
ent parts of its body, and by small air sacs — from 
two to four — which may be called lungs. The method 



72 



LIVING CREATURES. 



of catching its game is that which makes this animal 
so interesting. Some kinds of spiders seize their vic- 
tim by jumping upon it; others by running it down, 
as the tarantula of Italy does. But most of the varie- 
ties make snares for their prey, by their wonderful and 
exquisite webs. Before explaining their art of spin- 
ning and weaving, read a short fairy story of the an- 
cient Greeks. 




Garden Spider. 

Athena (A the'na) who is sometimes called Minerva, 
was the daughter of Jupiter, and was the goddess of 
agriculture. The ancients thought she invented the 
plow and the rake ; and taught how to yoke oxen 
and to take care of horses. She has the credit of 
many other inventions. It w 7 as she, they said, who in- 
vented every kind of work that women performed. 
She taught the fingers how to spin, to sew, and to 
weave ; and how to work the beautiful embroidery and 
tapestry in which the Grecian women excelled. 



SPIDERS. 73 

Arachne (A rack'ne) was a maiden who lived in 
Lydia. Her father Idmon was a famous dyer in pur- 
ple, and she was a skilled weaver. She grew bold 
enough to challenge Athena to a contest in her art; 
and for her part produced an exquisite piece of tapes- 
try. Athena, because she could find no fault in her 
competitor's work, grew proud and jealous, and tore 
the cloth in pieces. Whereupon Arachne, over- 
whelmed with despair, hanged herself. But the god- 
dess softened a little and loosened the rope, saving the 
life of Arachne. The rope was then instantly changed 
into a cobweb, and Arachne was transformed into a 
spider, the animal which above all others Athena hated. 

This story, or fable, is the method the ancients em- 
ployed of teaching that man learned the art of weav- 
ing from the spider, and that the art was invented in 
Lydia. It is a pleasant way of telling something which 
is probably quite true. In a great many of the arts 
men have taken their first lessons from animals. 

PART 2. 

Passing by the house spider and the cellar spider, 
whose webs are woven in a great variety of shapes, 
the garden, or geometric, spider gives the most interest- 
ing example of spinning and weaving. You may have 
seen her trudging along the ground, lugging a white 
silken sack which she is reluctant to part with. Per- 
haps you were not aware that this bundle contained 
her eggs. Had you watched closely you might have 
seen the young, after the eggs were hatched, riding 
on the back of their mother. 



74 



LIVING CREATURES. 




Spider's Foot. 



In spinning, the hind foot holds and guides the 
thread. The foot of Epeira, as the garden spider is 
called, should be examined and understood. Each foot 
has three claws, the middle one of which is bent over 
for clinging to the web. The other 
two have teeth like a comb, and in- 
deed are used, in part, for cleansing 
the limbs and webs. Over against 
the claws are stiff hairs which are 
also toothed, and which shut like a 
thumb against the claws. 

The wonder of the spider is the 
manufacture of her silk web. On the back of Epeira 
are six points, each about the size of a pin's point. 
These are her spinnerets. Each spinneret contains a 
multitude of fine tubes — some say a thousand — from 
each of which issues a sticky fluid made in the body 
of the spider. This fluid hardens as soon as it feels 
the air ; and the minute threads join to make a strong 
cable. The six spinnerets may each make a separate 
cable, or by bending toward one another may join all 
into one. The spider's thread is not /^— 
more than a four-thousandth part of 
an inch thick. 

Epeira chooses a place for her gos- 
samer wheel where the ends may be 
securely fastened, and where she may 
make for herself a convenient den. 
After throwing across the space a thread or two, she 
carries out from the center several rays or spokes, mak- 
ing each tight. She fastens a web to an object by sim- 
ply touching the spinneret to the object. Having ar- 




Spinnerets. 



SPIDERS. 



75 



ranged the spokes, she begins at the center and runs 
a spiral thread round and round. 

These spiral threads are smooth and dry, and are as 
far apart as the spider can conveniently reach. They 
are intended only for a temporary scaffolding to walk 
upon. Now Epeira begins at the outside or circum- 
ference of the wheel and works toward the center, 
carrying round and round a new thread which is wet 
and sticky, all the while biting away the scaffold be- 
fore her. Thus she leaves the sticky thread behind 
her, while she has the smooth, dry one to walk on. 

After all is finished, Madam Epeira builds a silken 
den for herself to hide in, in some place near by, 
where she may be secure and at the same time watch 
her work. A single telephone thread joins the woven 
net to her den, and upon this line she holds her sen- 
sitive foot. Should a fly strike any part of the net, 
she instantly feels the touch, hastens to the spot, and 
makes the intruder a prisoner, by spinning about its 
legs and wings a strong rope of silk. Though beauti- 
ful, it is a certain death-trap for the fly; and though 
so elaborate and perfect, it may be constructed in 
three quarters of an hour. 

All the wonderful work done by the spider is per- 
formed by the female. The male of some kinds is 
exceedingly small in comparison; so much so, that as 
a certain naturalist calculates, were he a man six feet 
high and weighing a hundred and fifty pounds, she, 
supposing her to be a woman, would measure seventy- 
five feet high and weigh two hundred thousand pounds. 
Her treatment of her poor, insignificant mate is set 
forth in the following little poem. 



y6 LIVING CREATURES. 



1 7. MISS SPIDER S WEDDING BREAKFAST. 

A fat little spider married would be, 
So he made him a rope and climbed a tree 
To where Miss Spider was making a pie 
Of a bumble bee and a small house fly. 

And she wed him there in the morning light, 
When the dew on the grass was round and bright, 
Then spread out her table so lacy and fine, 
And off from her husband began to dine. 

She ate him all, from his head to his heel, 
And never a pang of remorse did feel, 
But, as curled up close in her cosy bed, 
"That spider was tough," to herself she said. • 



l8. AMONG THE INSECTS. 

On the copy from which this page is printed a fly 
lighted. Did he think I was writing about him ? And 
had he come to see that I did not slander him? He 
stands still, and does not mind a motion of the hand, 
as flies usually do. He has found something to eat — 
that explains it all. Thank you, Musca, for I believe 
that is the name they have given you. I want to 
look you over a little. 

A spot of mucilage on the paper seems to attract 
him. Keep still ! There is a magnifying glass at hand 



AMONG THE INSECTS. 



77 




Fly Magnified. 



which I will hold over him. He lets down his bill, 
or trunk. Even with the naked eye, I have often seen 
flies do that ; but I see more accurately with the glass. 
The mucilage is hard, but he will penetrate it, for he 
is dropping moisture upon it from his tongue. 

Soon I have looked him nearly all over; have seen 



78 LIVING CREATURES. 

his bill unfold, and the knob on the end of it divide 
and spread out flat ; have seen his feelers reaching 
forward from his head, his two round eyes, his two 
wings, and six legs. 

Now Musca is through with the mucilage, and be- 
gins a droll performance. The fore legs are rubbed 
together, in the most lively manner, to clean away the 
gum and dust that stick to them, I suppose. He bal- 
ances himself on the middle pair, and rubs the hind 
legs in the same way. Again he comes to the fore 
legs, and I discover something that reminds me of the 
cat. He touches his legs to his lips, which are one 
with his tongue, and with them washes his face. 

I am through with you now ; you can go, little 
Musca. I shall not injure you. There come to my 
mind the words of kind-hearted Uncle Toby, when he 
opened the window to let out one of your foreign an- 
cestors : "Get thee gone/' he said ; " for why should 
I harm thee? Is not the world big enough for both 
thee and me?" 

Having gathered all the facts my eyes can reach, I 
will now turn to books to ascertain whether some other 
one has seen more than I have, and whether I have 
seen correctly. Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 
which contains much information besides definitions, 
says the fly is a "winged insect." The winged feat- 
ure is very clear, for on Musca's back I saw two gauzy 
wings with bronze and purple tints. Turn now to 
"insect." This is a name given to certain small ani- 
mals whose bodies appear cut in, or almost "di- 
vided " — so the great book says. 

This knowledge is helpful. The fly did appear "cut 



AMONG THE INSECTS. Jg 

in" — not in two, but in three — parts. The book has 
named the parts. They are the head, the thorax, and 
the abdomen. These, jointed together, were seen in 
Musca; and I further observed that the six legs and 
the two wings were attached to the thorax, or middle 
division. With the aid of the glass I could see the 
short feelers, or antennae, on Musca's head. Keener 
eyes may see them without the glass. 

Much more can not be seen, except by dissecting 
the fly and examining its parts under a microscope. 
The fly has no hard jaws or teeth, as some insects have, 
and can not bite. When the tongue is unfolded to 
touch a piece of sugar, the knob on the end of it spreads 
out into two flat leaves covered w r ith small hair-tubes. 
The sugar is first moistened and dissolved; then 
scraped and sucked up by the hairy lips. In like man- 
ner book-covers and pictures are injured, the fly scrap- 
ing them with the leaves of its tongue. 

The eyes of the fly seem to be two, but the micro- 
scope discovers that they are composed of a great 
many — several thousand — minute eyes, each with a lit- 
tle nerve of its own. Three small and single eyes are 
on the back of the head, but their precise use is not 
known. 

PART 2. 

When the fly walks, three legs are thrown forward 
at one time — two on one side and one on the other. 
The microscope reports that the leg and the foot are 
covered with stiff hairs, so that they are like combs or 
brushes. This is the reason, then, why Musca rubbed 
his legs together — that one brush might clean the 



8o 



LIVING CREATURES. 



other. The foot is quite as wonderful as the eye, for 
its construction shows how the fly can walk with its 
back downwards, and on smooth surfaces. 

On the last joints of the foot are a pair of claws under 
each of which is a pad or soft cushion. For a long time 
it was supposed that the pads were hollow like cups, 
and adhered to the surface by pressing out the air. 

This has been found to be a 
mistake. The latest discov- 
eries, as given by Prof. C. V. 
Riley, prove that the pads are 
beset by ever so many knobbed 
hairs, as shown in the drawing. 
From each hair flows a fluid 
which keeps its end or disk 
moist, and enables it to stick. 
The smoother the surface the 
more closely will the hairs stick. 
On rougher surfaces, like a 
whitewashed or papered wall, 
the delicate claws are able to cling to the microscopic 
unevenness, without aid from the hairs. 

Where are the fly's ears? The sense of touch is 
chiefly in the antennae which project like horns from 
the forehead. Some other insects, as the cricket, have 
very long antennae. The fine hairs on the legs, also, 
have the power of feeling. But there are no ears to 
be found. 

It is equally difficult to find the fly's nose. But it is 
evident that it can smell. Careful and continued ob- 
servation has proved that the fly and most other insects 
feel, hear, and smell with their antennae. A sort of 




Fly's Foot Magnified. 



AMONG THE INSECTS. 8 1 

ear, it should be said, has been found on the abdomen 
of the cockroach. 

Having learned how easy it is to crush a fly or a 
mosquito, it is well to inquire about the bones of these 
animals. A bird or a chicken can not be so com- 
pletely pulverized by pressing upon it. After the flesh, 
or soft part of the chicken is removed, the bones — 
hard and tough — remain. After the horny case that 
incloses the insect is broken, the soft parts, or flesh, 
are found within. The crust that envelops it, is the fly's 
skeleton. The fly wears its skeleton on the outside of 
its flesh ; the chicken wears its skeleton on the inside. 

The fly digests its food much more simply than 
does the chicken. Through 
its body runs a single tube 
which is enlarged in one 
place for a gizzard armed 
with horny teeth ; and in 
another place it swells into a 
sac for a stomach. No red 

Fig-. 9. Breathing Tubes of Fly. 

blood appears to flow when 

the insect is wounded or crushed. The blood of insects 

is white or colorless. 

Another peculiarity of the fly, and of its fellow in- 
sects, is the way in which they breathe. They do not 
draw the air through the mouth into lungs, as we do. 
They have no lungs. In the crust which covers their 
bodies are holes, or spiracles (s/>), that open into tubes. 
These tubes, swelling into air-sacs here and there, 
branch into every part of the body. Alongside of 
them lie the blood-vessels which receive air from the 

tubes, as our blood takes air from our lungs. 
l. c\— 6. 




82 LIVING CREATURES. 

After finding so many odd features in the fly, it need 
not be surprising to learn that the young fly comes to 
be full-grown in a wonderful way. The hen lays an 
egg from which a chicken is hatched — a small, downy, 
feeble thing — which in two years becomes an adult 
fowl. The fly lays an egg that hatches, when behold ! 
not a little fly, but a small, white worm or grub about 
one third of an inch long. This thing the ancients 
called a larva, which means a mask, because a real fly 
was supposed to be hidden within. 

The fly's eggs are laid and hatched in the litter 
which collects about the stable, or elsewhere. The 
minute grub eats heartily for perhaps a week, and then 
appears to die, and change into a shelly case. To this 
little thing, quiet and motionless as a mummy, the 
name pupa was given, which means a doll or girl. In 
about two weeks this pupa splits open, when, not a 
doll or a girl, but a full-grown, full-winged fly steps 
out, dries its wings, and flies away, as if it knew all 
about the world. 

After the great army of summer flies has been de- 
stroyed by age, by fly-traps, and cool weather, a few 
strong ones remain stupid, sleeping like woodchucks 
and bears, until spring. Then, about the month of 
May, the laying commences, a single fly depositing 
several hundred eggs. These hatch, pass through the 
changes described, and many of them, in turn, produce 
e gg s - The easiest way to be rid of the immense swarms 
of summer is to destroy the spring mothers, which are 
few. In the same way it is easier to strangle a bad 
habit than to fight down all the wrong actions that 
spring from it. 



A MUSICAL BURGLAR. 83 



19. A MUSICAL BURGLAR. 

Isaac T. Hopper was a kind, humorous Quaker, who 
lived in New York City forty years ago. He was al- 
ways ready to give or take a joke. One day when he 
was buying some peaches at a fruit-stand, he said to 
the woman, "A serious accident happened at our 
house last night. I killed two robbers." " Dear me ! " 
she exclaimed. "Were they young men, or old con- 
victs?" "I don't know about that," he replied. "I 
should think they might have been by the noise they 
made. But I despatched them before they had stolen 
much. The walls are quite bloody." 

"Has a coroner's inquest been called?" inquired 
the woman. When he answered "No," she lifted her 
hands in astonishment, and exclaimed: "Well now, I 
do declare ! If anybody else had done it there would 
have been a great fuss about it ; but you are a priv- 
ileged man, Mr. Hopper." When he was about to 
walk away, he said to the woman, "I did not mention 
to thee that the robbers I killed were two mosquitoes." 

The insect to which the Spaniards have given the 
pretty name of mosquito is a burglar. It enters the 
house at night for the purpose of stealing. For a rob- 
ber its way is a bold and honest one. It is not a 
sneak-thief. With the sound of music it advances, for 
it is a bugler as well as a burglar. 

Why does this winged robber so loudly announce 
her coming? Rather, one would say, let her slip 
quietly in when the victims are asleep, take a little 
tube full of blood and be off. 



8 4 



LIVING CREATURES. 



To most people the bugle of the mosquito is as un- 
welcome as her lancet-sting. It gives a musical sound, 
but there are fidgety thoughts of surgery and blood 
mingled with the music. Possibly this is the very rea- 
son why the mosquito pipes her tune — to irritate the 

nerves of her poor victim, who 
is trying to coax sleep. When 
the victim is excited, the blood 
flows more freely, and the veins 




Mosquito and Imago Magnified. 

are full. Very appropriate is it, therefore, for this 
visitor to fill a vein by her noise, before she taps it 
with her beak. 

Like the house fly, our night-warbler has the char- 
acteristics of the true insect — the head, the thorax, 
and the abdomen ; the six legs and two wings. In 
some respects she is different from the fly, and she is 



A MUSICAL BURGLAR. 



85 



far more beautiful. Her form is more graceful and 
elegant. Her attire is as gorgeous as a queen's. Her 
wings, as thin as a spider's web, are of soft, amber 
color. Her breast is brilliant red ; her body dark 
green ; her eyes glittering like diamonds ; the proboscis, 
with which she pierces for blood, keener than the finest 
needle-point, and bright, like polished ebony. All 
this beauty, however, is lost in the darkness of night, 
and in the day-time, can be seen only by the aid of 
the microscope. 

The complete mosquito lives wholly in the air, 
though its infancy is passed in the water. The egg 
from which it is hatched is one of several hundred 
which, when laid, are glued together in 
the shape of a boat, and set afloat on 
the water. In about a week these eggs 
are hatched, and then appears the swarm 
of larvae, or " wigglers, " so often seen in 
a stagnant pool, where they eat the par- 
ticles of decaying matter that may con- 
tain the germs of disease. When the 
water is undisturbed, these active swim- 
mers are found near the surface, with 
their heads downwards. They breathe 
the air through a hairy tube extending 
out near the tail. Touch the top of the 
water and they quickly wiggle to the bottom for safety. 

From ten to fifteen days after these larvae — the wig- 
glers — appear, they change into the pupa state. The 
pupa sheds its skin several times, and moves or tumbles 
around by the use of two small fins or paddles. In 
about ten days, when the perfect mosquito is grown 




Mosquito Larva. 



86 LIVING CREATURES. 

within, the pupa shell bursts open on the back and 
forms a boat or raft. The mosquito puts out its head, 
then one pair of legs after another, until all are out, 
and the wings are free though wet. Now it balances 
itself on its tail, waiting for the legs and wings to 
grow strong and dry enough for use. This is a dan- 
gerous moment. A gust of wind or a drop of rain 
will cause a shipwreck. For this reason mosquitoes 
are only brought forth in still or stagnant waters. 

PART 2. 

When the voyage of infancy is successfully passed, 
the complete mosquitoes begin life on the wing. The 
males, during a very short life, remain in the woods 
and marshes. The females alone do the biting, and 
they at once set out to find victims that have blood. 
Whether they can see in the dark, or can scent their 
prey afar off, it is not certain. Something enables 
them to find human habitations, and the sleeping in- 
mates whom they serenade. 

The beak that extends out in front of the head is a 
case of piercing instruments which our burglar brings 
with her. They are the mouth-parts of the mosquito, 
and are very different from the mouth-organs of the 
house fly. When not in use, they are laid close to- 
gether, and are sheathed by the under lip. 

In Figure 10 appears the head of the mosquito 
with its compound eyes. Curving out from the fore- 
head, to right and left, are the antennae, or principal 
feelers (a). Below these is the upper lip (ut) which 
has a groove running its full length to receive the 




A MUSICAL BURGLAR. 8/ 

tongue (/), the two large jaws (Ij) and the two small 
jaws (sf). These jaws are not really such, but are 
more like fangs. The upper ones, indeed, convey 
poison into the wound, as do the fangs of the rattle- 
snake ; and this poison dilutes the blood and makes it 
flow to the tongue through which it is drawn into the 
stomach. The lower jaws are 
barbed at the end, that they may 
work back and forth like saws. 

These mouth parts are spread 
out in the figure, to show them 
more distinctly. When the mos- 
quito bites they are pressed to- Fig - la Mouth Parts ' 
gether in the upper lip, making a beak like an awl. 
When our tuneful robber proposes to take blood, she 
discourses her music in circling flights about an un- 
easy head, until she finds a favorable spot. There she 
lights, gracefully setting down one foot after another, 
and at once thrusts through the skin her compound 
awl, — sheath, poison fangs, saws and tongue — and 
draws her meal of blood. 

Some have supposed her song to be caused by the 
motion of her wings, which make fifty vibrations in a 
second. Others have thought the song to be produced 
by the insect blowing through her breathing tubes. 
Whatever its cause, the mosquito's tune would be a 
charming one were it not associated with instruments 
of torture and a blood-thirsty tongue. 

There are in this country over thirty varieties of mos- 
quitoes. Some are small and others are quite large. 
Some live wholly on vegetable juices, while others have 
a passion for animal fluids. The largest, and perhaps 



88 LIVING CREATURES. 

the most ferocious kind, is one which the steamboatmen 
of the Mississippi River call the galnipper. Of it they 
tell strange stories. They describe it as being as large 
as a goose ; and they gravely declare that it flies about 
at night with a brick-bat under its wings to sharpen 
its beak with. 



20. TO A MOSQUITO. 



Fair insect ! that with thread-like legs spread out, 
And blood-extracting bill and filmy wing, 

Dost murmur, as thou slowly sail'st about, 
In pitiless ears full many a plaintive thing, 

And tell how little our large veins would bleed, 

Would we but yield them to thy bitter need. 

Unwillingly, I own, and, what is worse, 
Full angrily men hearken to thy plaint ; 

Thou gettest many a brush, and many a curse, 
For saying thou art gaunt, and starved, and faint; 

Even the old beggar, while he asks for food, 

Would kill thee, hapless stranger, if he could. 

Beneath the rushes was thy cradle swung, 

And when at length thy gauzy wings grew strong, 

Abroad to gentle airs their folds were flung, 
Rose in the sky and bore thee soft along ; 

The south wind breathed to waft thee on the way, 

And danced and shone beneath the billowy bay. 



THE HOUSE CRICKET. 89 



21. THE HOUSE CRICKET. 

Tender insects, says White, that live abroad, either 
enjoy only the short period of one summer, or doze 
away the cold, uncomfortable months in profound slum- 
bers. But the house crickets, residing, as it were, in a 
torrid zone, are always alert and merry. A good 
Christmas fire is to them what the heat of the dog-day 
is to others. 

Around in sympathetic mirth, 

Its tricks the kitten tries; 
The cricket chirrups in the hearth, 

The crackling faggot flies. 

As one would suppose, by their living near fires, they 
are a thirsty race, and show a liking for liquids, being 
frequently found drowned in pans of water, milk, broth, 
or the like. Whatever is moist they seek for, and 
therefore they gnaw holes in wet woolen stockings and 
aprons that are hung near the fire. These animals are 
not only very thirsty, but very hungry ; for they will 
eat yeast, crumbs, and kitchen sweepings of almost 
every description. 

In summer they have been seen to fly, when it be- 
came dusk, out of the windows and over the neigh- 
boring roofs. This accounts for their coming to new 
houses where they were not known before — pleased 
with the moisture of the walls, and getting into the 
soft cracks between the bricks. 

Common prejudice frequently prevents any attempt 
being made to rid the house of this noisy animal. 
Many persons imagine that their presence is attended 



go 



LIVING CREATURES. 



with good fortune, and that to drive them away or kill 
them will bring some misfortune on the family. 

The noise of the cricket is produced by the male. 
He elevates his horny wing-cases, and rubs them briskly 
together. The sound, no doubt, suggested the name, 
for it is just like the syllables, cree-cree. It is in the 
dusk of the evening, when friendly faces are assem- 




House and Field Crickets. 



bled around the blazing hearth, that the warmth raises 
the cricket's cry. It is the single tale, the one chant 
of its life ; and however loud the conversation or the 
laugh, its shrill note is heard through all. 

This shrilling of the cricket was once so troublesome 
to a lady as to cause her to resort to every means to 
dislodge the insect from its roost ; but all in vain. It 
so happened that a wedding was celebrated in her 



CRICKETS OF THE FIELD. 9 1 

house, with all kinds of music. The trumpet and the 
drum were rather more than the cricket could cry 
down ; and whether from fright, or from anger at being 
conquered, it is not certain ; but certain it is that 
crickets never again troubled the house or the lady. 
There are few, however, who object to the cry; for 
over the hearts of most men the merry chirp of the 
house cricket has power, calling up those days when 
its single note was mingled with many a voice which 
will not, perhaps, be heard again. 

The learned Scaliger, who lived in Italy more than 
three hundred years ago, kept some crickets in a box 
to cheer him in his labors. This practice also prevails 
in Spain ; and in Africa persons make a trade of crick- 
ets. They feed them in a kind of iron oven, and sell 
them to the natives, among whom the noise they make 
is thought to be pleasing ; and these people believe 
that it assists in lulling them to sleep. 



2 2. CRICKETS OF THE FIELD. 

While taking our evening rambles over the field, we 
sometimes hear the cheerful summer cry of the field 
cricket. But they are so sly and cautious, says White, 
that it is difficult to obtain sight of one of these sonor- 
ous animals; for, feeling a person's footsteps as he ad- 
vances, they stop short in the midst of their song, and 
retire backward, nimbly into their burrows, until all 
suspicion of danger is over. 



92 LIVING CREATURES. 

There is one way, however, by which any one may 
obtain his wish, — by gently pushing a limber stalk into 
their burrows, which will probe their windings to the 
bottom. This will quickly bring out the animal as it 
lays hold of the stalk with its paws. 

When the males meet, they fight fiercely, as White 
found by some which he put into the crevices of a dry 
stone wall, where he wanted them to settle. The first 
that got possession of the crevices would attack any 
that tried to enter. They would seize them with their 
strong jaws, which are toothed like the shears of a lob- 
ster-claw. With these jaws, too, they bore and round 
their curious cells. 

They feed on such herbs as grow before the mouths 
of their burrows, and rarely stir more than two or three 
inches from home. Sitting in the entrance of their cav- 
erns, they chirp all night as well as all day, from the 
month of May to the middle of July. In hot weather, 
when they are most vigorous, they make the hill echo ; 
and in the still hours of darkness, they may be heard at 
considerable distance. 



23. BUSY BEES. 



It requires a busy pen to write about busy bees. 
There is the bumble bee sporting in a yellow and black 
jacket, and sometimes called Bombus. What brave 
boy in the country has not at some time made a hero 
of himself by attacking a bumble bees' nest ? 

We learn that Bombus, if undisturbed in her hum- 



BUSY BEES. 



93 



ble home, does some valuable work, though she has no 
honey to spare. Because she has a longer tongue than 
the honey bee has, she can reach the nectar in the deep 
corolla of a red clover flower ; and in so doing she car- 
ries the pollen from one stem to another, thus enabling 
the flower to bear seed. No bumble bees, no clover, 
seed. The people in New Zealand tried to raise clover 
and failed. Why? The bumble bee was not there. 
So they imported her, and, doubtless, were happy in 
their sweet-scented crops of red clover. Truly great is 
Bombus ! But we must let her go. 




Queen. 



The hive bee is our busy, curious, wonderful honey- 
maker. The honey bee is a trinity — the queen, the 
drone, and the worker. All the three are necessary to 
the life and prosperity of the colony, which may con- 
tain fifty thousand busy people. The picture shows 
the form peculiar to each of the three. The queen 
is the mother of the whole colony. The worker-bees 
respect and love her because she is mother. She 
does not rule the workers, nor does she direct their 
movements. The bee-government is purely a govern- 
ment by the people. The workers can get rid of the 
queen or make a new queen when they choose. 

The workers are females, but as a rule lay no eggs. 



94 



LIVING CREATURES. 



The drones are males, but neither work nor sting ; for 
the best of reasons — because they have no tools for 
working or stinging. The queen and the workers have 
a sting in the abdomen. The workers defend the hive 
by the use of this weapon, but they never attack when 
abroad and about their work. The queen uses her 
sting in combat with another queen, but never upon a 

human hand ; so that 
she may be handled 
without danger. 

All bees have com- 
pound eyes. Ears, 
or hearing organs, 
they must have, for 
the piping of the 
young queen in her 
cell sets the others 
astir. They smell, 
also, for they follow 
the scent of unseen 
honey. Where the 
ears and nose are, it 
is not certain. They 
is also the sense of 




Improved Hive. 



may be in the antennae, where 
feeling. 

The business of bees is gathering food for themselves 
and for their young. If they are well kept, they store 
a great deal more honey than is necessary for this pur- 
pose. From this abundance comes the honey which 
human people use. To understand the work of bees 
you must gather some flowers and have them explained 
to you. The material which bees procure for their use 



BUSY BEES. 95 

is the sweet or nectar of flowers, and the pollen or 
flower-dust. This pollen lies on the stamens of flow- 
ers, and must be conveyed to the pistils in order that 
the flower may ripen into seed or fruit. This explains 
something about the clover already referred to. There 
is also a sticky substance called propolis, with which 
the bees fasten their comb to the hive or frames, and 
which they gather from willow or alder trees. 

The w r orker-bee's mouth is perfectly adapted to the 
work of taking nectar from flowers. It has a long lip 
and a much longer tongue. Jaws there are, too ; not 
harsh ones like the beetle's, but strong enough to 
serve the bees in working wax and bee-bread. Sup- 
pose a queen and a few workers have weathered the 
winter and are to commence their spring work. The 
first thing they need, beside their daily food, is wax. 
The workers start out for flowers and nectar. The 
queen never works. 

The sweet-scented flowers rarely yield nectar ; so 
the workers find the red and golden maple, and among 
later blossoms the flowers of apple, quince, raspberry, 
white clover, and buckwheat. These they probe with 
their tongues — sometimes crawling into them — and lick 
up the nectar. This sweet goes to their stomachs, 
where it is made into two things — honey and wax. 
The material for about twenty pounds of honey will 
yield one pound of wax. 

Bees have a fine sense of direction ; and when about 
to return from their pastures, which they sometimes 
follow as far as four miles from their hive, they rise 
in the air and whirl round so as to see the familiar 
objects about them, and then start off in a perfectly 



96 LIVING CREATURES. 

straight line, which is called a "bee-line." Having 
filled themselves with nectar, and having taken a good 
drink of water, they fly back to the hive, and hang 
from its top in thick clusters or festoons, holding to 
one another by their legs. In twenty-four hours; 
small plates of wax appear in pouches on their under- 
pays, or abdomens. 

The workers shake the wax from their bodies, or 
pick it out of the pouches with their feet ; then take 
it in their jaws, work it over with saliva, and from it 

build cells in double rows. A 
great many are at work, and 
they crowd one another close- 
ly. Wonderful indeed are 
these cells ! always six-sided ; 
never round or square. Why 
are they six-sided, and not 
square? How awkward for 
a round animal to turn in a 
Hexagons and circles. square hole ! But why not 

round? With the diagram before you, these ques- 
tions will be left for you to study upon. 

Besides nectar for honey, pollen is required for bee- 
bread. This is mixed with honey for ordinary food, 
and is quite necessary in the preparation of baby-food 
for the young or larvae. Should you ask a bee why, 
in gathering pollen, she confines herself to one variety 
of flowers at one time, she could, perhaps, give you 
no reason, even if she could talk. To keep the dif- 
ferent kinds of plants unmixed, it is necessary that 
this should be so. 

The pollen fr scraped up and rolled into balls, and 




BUSY BEES. 97 

then packed into little baskets at the middle joints of 
the hind legs. The right foot is used to fill the left 
pocket, and the left foot to fill the right pocket. 

PART 2. 

The cells are made for four different purposes — for 
the young workers, drones, and queens, and for stor- 
ing honey. Four drone cells or five worker cells will 
measure an inch. The queen cell is larger. Honey 
cells are not uniform in size, but are about a half inch 
deep by a quarter inch in diameter. Remember the 
queen lays all the eggs. She places a single egg in 
each nursery cell, always being careful to deposit 
worker eggs in worker cells, drone eggs in drone cells. 
She makes no mistakes. The grown workers seal up 
these cells, leaving little holes for air to enter, when 
the young shall be hatched. The honey cells, when 
filled, they always seal tight to keep the honey from 
turning to candy. In about three days the eggs in the 
cells are hatched, and the young appear in the shape 
of small, white grubs or larvae. 

Now some of the workers act as nurses, and are 
busy preparing food for the young in their cells. 
Pollen, honey, and water are mixed, and partly di- 
gested in the stomachs of the nurses, and this mixture 
is fed to the working and drone infants. A more 
stimulating substance, called royal jelly, is given to 
the queen-grubs, of which there are usually about five. 
And, strange as it may seem, should all the queens be 
destroyed, the workers will feed the royal jelly to a 

worker-grub not more than three days old ; enlarge its 
l. c.- 7 . 



9 8 



LIVING CREATURES. 




cell, and in due time it 
will become a queen. In 
five or six days the larvae 
have attained their full 
growth. Then they cease 
to eat, spin about them- 
selves silken cocoons, be- 
come pupae, and the work- 
ers seal their cells. In 
twenty-one days from the 

laying of the eggs, the perfect insects — the full-grown 

bees — come forth. 

About this time, which is likely to be in May or 

June, swarming commences. The new workers and 

drones are released from their cells, but not so the 



BUSY BEES. 99 

queens. They are still confined, and are strongly 
guarded by the workers, who bore holes in the cells, 
through which openings they pass the food. The old 
queen hears the piping of the royal prisoners, and be- 
comes greatly excited ; and from jealousy would de- 
stroy them if she could. Then a large portion of the 
bees fill themselves with honey, and joining the old 
queen, in a dense, whirling body leave the hive, and 
cluster, it may be, on some branch from which they 
are carefully swept into a basket, and are then put 
into a new hive. 

It is when the new swarm bursts forth, that some 
people in the country raise a cry and a din with tin 
pans and cow-bells, hoping by this means to make the 
bees settle. Precisely this same practice was common 
among the Romans more than two thousand years 
ago. The old fashioned hive in this country is a piece 
of a hollow tree, called a "gum." In Europe it is 
made of straw, and has the shape of a little dome and 
is quite picturesque. 

The Romans used a hollow cork-tree. Our improved 
hives have movable frames in which the bees make 
their comb, as shown on page 94. In the lower part 
of the hive are the brood combs and some of the 
honey. In the upper part, in nice frames, in glass 
boxes, or in other receptacles, the bees store their 
surplus honey, and in these it is easily removed. 

With the improved hives, the wild swarming and the 
music of the tin pan may be prevented. Some of the 
frames containing brood-comb may be gently taken out 
and set into a new hive. The old queen may be found 
and transferred to the new home ; or a queen cell, near 



IOO LIVING CREATURES. 

the time of hatching, may be cut out and inserted in 
the comb in the new hive. 

If handled gently, bees are not apt to sting, though 
the bee-hat and a little smoke are often made use of. 
A very pretty case of swarming is told by a French 
bee-keeper : ' ' A young girl of my acquaintance, who 
was much afraid of bees, was completely cured of her 
fear by the following incident : A swarm having come 
off, I observed the queen alight by herself at a little 
distance from the apiary (bee-house). I immediately 
called my little friend, that I might show her the 
queen. She wished to see her more closely. 

"So after having caused her to put on her gloves, 
I gave the queen into her hand. We were in an in- 
stant surrounded by all the bees of the swarm. I en- 
couraged the girl to be steady, bidding her be silent 
and fear nothing. I then made her stretch out her right 
hand, which held the queen, and covered her head and 
shoulders with a very thin handkerchief. The swarm 
soon fixed on her hand and hung from it as from the 
branch of a tree. The little girl was delighted beyond 
measure, and the spectators were charmed with the in- 
teresting spectacle. At length I brought a hive, and, 
shaking the swarm from her hand, it was lodged in 
safety, and without inflicting a single wound." 

The life of the first brood of workers is about six 
weeks. Those hatched later in the season live longer, 
and a few endure the winter. The queen may live four 
years. The drones, which number about one thirtieth 
part of a hive, are all slaughtered by the workers, dur- 
ing the latter part of the summer. They are of no use 
now. They neither work nor sting ; and why should 



A NICE LITTLE HOUSEKEEPER. IOI 

they be fed? Bee-life, like other insect life, like bird- 
life, and man-life, is beset with struggles and dangers. 
Bee-moths, rats, mice, woodpeckers, bee-martin birds, 
toads, and bears are all after the little honey maker's 
honey or its life. 



24. A NICE LITTLE HOUSEKEEPER. 

Jenny. Well, Mrs. Ant, I am glad to see you here 
again. I quite missed you. 

Ant. I am much obliged to you for thinking of me, 
Miss Jenny. However, I have not been away since 
the last time I had the pleasure of meeting you. 

Jenny. But I have seen nothing of you since last 
October, though I have come to the nest several times 
to inquire for you. 

Ant. I assure you, Miss Jenny, I have not stirred 
from this spot since last autumn, until yesterday, when 
I came out for the first time, and we began our spring 
house-cleaning and repairs, which you see are going on 
very actively. 

Jenny. I should like to see the interior of one of 
your houses. 

Ant (in great alarm). I hope you will not think of 
examining one of them, Miss Jenny. It would afford 
you very little gratification, and it would inflict great 
injury on us. 

Jenny. Do not be disturbed, Mrs. Ant. I have not 
the least idea of digging up your nice nest and spoil- 



102 LIVING CREATURES. 

ing all your walls and galleries. But I should be glad 
to have you tell me something about them. 

Ant. I hardly know how to describe them to you, 
my dear. We build almost entirely under ground, ex- 
cavating arched chambers, sometimes round or oval, 
but all well smoothed and hard finished. These are 
connected by galleries. Some of our nests are three 
or four feet deep, and occupy a large space, like this 
one, which you see, has several different entrances. 

Jenny. I should like to hear something more about 
ants, if you are not too busy to talk to me. 

Ant. O, I have nothing to do at present. This is 
my resting-time, and I am glad to enjoy it, for I was 
working all night. 

Jenny. Do you work all night ? 

Ant. Sometimes, when it is moonlight, and we are 
very busy. At this time of year, especially, when 
storms are frequent, we are very glad to avail ourselves 
of every hour of dry weather. But as I am at leisure 
I can answer all your questions. The nest of the 
horse-ant consists, like ours, of a great many cells and 
galleries ; though about half of their apartments are 
above ground. They transport their young ones from 
the upper to the lower stories, when it grows cold, and 
back again when the sun shines out. There are other 
ants which build their nest wholly in the earth. These 
ants work only after sunset, and are very industrious 
and ingenious. Their walls, pillars, and arches are all 
made of soft clay, well worked and tempered. Each 
ant brings in its mouth a morsel of clay and joins it 
to the rest, smoothing it with her jaws and patting it 
with her forefeet. 



A NICE LITTLE HOUSEKEEPER. 



I03 



( One of the ants jicst at this point runs up to the speak- 
er, and after patting her on the head with Iter feelers , hur- 
ries away.) 

Jenny. What did your friend do that for? 

Ant. She told me in the ant's language, that there 
was a lump of sugar lying in that flower-pot, and ad- 




\ 17/4^; / 



Jenny and the Ant. 

vised me to go and help myself before it was all 
eaten up. 

Jenny. Did she say all that with those motions? I 
did not hear her make any noise. 

Ant. We never make a noise when we talk. We 
talk altogether by signs. 



104 LIVING CREATURES. 

Jenny. But why do you not go and share in the 
feast with the others, Mrs. Ant? Do not let me de- 
tain you, if you wish to go. 

Ant. Thank you ; I do not care for it. I am going 
to milk one of our cows by and by. 

Jenny. Why, what do you mean ? 

Ant. I am going to milk one of our cows, I say. 
What is there surprising about that? Your father 
keeps several cows, does he not? 

Jenny. Why — yes. But ants ! Pray how large are 
your cows? 

Ant. They are very small, — not quite so large as we 
ourselves. Just turn up the leaves of that rose-bush. 
There ! Do you not see a number of little pale green 
insects? 

Jenny. Yes ; I have often seen them before. They 
are plant-lice, and they do a great deal of harm to the 
shrubs. 

Ant. Well, however that may be, the aphides, or 
plant-lice, are our little cows, and yield us an abun- 
dance of nice milk as sweet as honey. Very frequently 
they live in the nest with us, feeding sometimes upon 
the roots of the plants about us, and sometimes upon 
the provisions we carry in for them. We take good 
care of them and of their young, keeping their eggs in 
the warmest part of the nest, in order that they may 
hatch out early and so supply us in the spring. Now 
I will milk one of them. You see I pat it gently with 
my feelers, when it gives out two drops of clear sweet 
fluid. These cows are our most valuable property, 
and we should fight furiously, if any one should inter- 
fere with them. 



A NICE LITTLE HOUSEKEEPER. IO5 



PART 2. 

Jenny. So you do fight sometimes. 

Ant. Yes, indeed ; we have sharp battles, and often 
leave half our number dead upon the field. These 
combats sometimes take place between different races, 
and sometimes between two colonies of the same 
race. At such times you may see thousands of ants 
biting, struggling, wrestling, and overturning each 
other in the dust, till night puts an end to the combat. 

Jenny. But what do they fight for? 

Ant. Sometimes for one thing, sometimes for an- 
other. Perhaps two parties have seized the same spi- 
der or earth-worm, or the ants of one hill trespass upon 
the pastures and seize the cows of another. But there 
are ants who go out to war for the express purpose of 
making prisoners, which they carry home to their nest. 

Jenny. What do they do with them ? Not eat them, 
I hope. 

Ant. O, no — not quite so bad as that. But these 
prisoner ants do all the work of the nest afterwards. 
The red ants, who are the fighters, start on these plun- 
dering expeditions between two and five of the after- 
noon of a fine day, first sending out ants to explore 
about the hill they intend to attack. Upon the return 
of these scouts, they set out, and having reached the col- 
ony, they attack it with great fury. The dark-colored 
ants, which they attack, defend themselves with great 
bravery, but in vain. The red assailants are the strong- 
est, and in a few minutes they may be seen coming 
out, each with a young ant or an cg ( ^ in her mouth, 



106 LIVING CREATURES. 

with which she hastens homeward. They take good 
care of these slaves, who in turn take upon themselves 
the whole work of the nest. They feed the young, 
repair the dwelling, and lay up the provisions. They 
even feed their masters — putting the food into their 
very mouths. Though these masters are such fighters, 
they are very lazy, and will starve rather than wait on 
themselves. 

Jenny. What silly creatures ! I do not see any of 
those dark-colored ants in your nest. 

Ant. No ; we do our own work, and never interfere 
with our neighbors so long as they do not trouble us. 
We nurse our little ones, lay up our own provisions, 
and all bear an equal share in the repairs and other 
necessary labors about the nest. 

Jenny. I should like very much to hear about your 
little ones. I do not know that I have ever seen them. 

Ant. You have seen them, though probably you 
did not know what they were. In their immature, or 
pupa state, they look very much like white seeds, or 
very small fine grains of boiled rice. 

Jenny. I have seen your friends carry such things 
in and out of the nest, but I supposed they were lay- 
ing something up for food. But why do they bite off 
the ends? I have seen them do that sometimes. 

Ant. That is to assist the young ant in making its 
way out. You may have noticed that we take great 
care of these eggs — sometimes laying them in the sun, 
sometimes carrying them into the interior of the nest. 

Jenny. Yes ; I have often wondered what it was for. 

Ant. In order that they may have just as much 
heat as is good for them, and no more. A great part 



A NICE LITTLE HOUSEKEEPER. IO7 

of the duty of the workers consists in taking care of 
the eggs and young ones, and in attending -on the 
queen and leading her about. 
Jenny. Then you have a queen, do you? 

Ant. Yes; but our queen is only the mother of the 
community, and has no authority whatever over us. 
She is, however, treated with the greatest respect and 
affection by us all. Wherever she goes, we press 
around her, offer her food, brush her dress for her, and 
help her up steep ascents, and through narrow pas- 
sages. As often as she goes through the nest, the 
workers leave their occupation, pat her on the head and 
breast, and stand on their hind legs, laying their fore- 
feet on each other's shoulders, and thus dance about 
her. Whenever she lays an egg y it is at once taken up 
by a worker and carried to a place of safety. Some- 
times there are two or three queens in the nest, but 
they are all friendly and kind to each other. 
Jenny. Does the queen never go out of the nest? 

Ant. Never. It would be considered improper in 
the highest degree for her to do so. Indeed, no sooner 
is a female elected queen than she throws away her 
wings, of her own accord, and never stirs out after- 
wards. 

Jenny. But what becomes of the males? 

Ant. O, they die very soon after they come out. 
They are tender, helpless creatures, and the first rude 
wind or storm kills them. 

Jenny, What is that upon the door-step? 

Ant. O, I see. They have found a nice fat spider, 
which has been killed in some way, and they are going 
to take it to the nest for food. 



io8 



LIVING CREATURES. 



25. BUTTERFLIES AND MOTHS. 

When spring is marching to the music of birds, and 
the leaves are unfolding to the warm sun, and the 
dandelions lift their golden heads in the growing grass, 
and the cows feed on sweet pastures, and yellow butter 
gathers in the churn, then come the butterflies. 

Fluttering around the pools on the country road 

may be seen the boy's 
butterfly, with a set 
of bright, yellow 
wings, which many a 
boy seeks to imprison 
with his new straw 
hat. Thinking of the 
butter in the churn, 
it is easy to imagine 
how this butterfly 
came by its name. It 
is also called colzas, and 
later in the season it 
will sport its wings 
among the blooming 
clover. 

From the common yellow butterfly the name easily 
passes to the great multitude of cousins, though they 
be brown, or black, or variegated in color. Many are 
their sizes as well as their colors, and different families 
have different shapes. When summer has fairly come, 
in our temperate climate, the swallow-tailed butterflies 
appear. A common one wears a rich dress of yellow 




Yellow Butterfly— Colias. 



BUTTERFLIES AND MOTHS. IO9 

and black, and belongs to a family called papilio — quite 
a pretty name. 

Moths, of which something particular will soon be 
said, are naturally thought of with butterflies. The 
common ones are clad in sober dress. Under the mi- 
croscope, the wings of all butterflies and moths disclose 
beauties not seen by the naked eye. What commonly 
appears to be colored dust, and rubs off the wings 
under the touch of a finger, the microscope proves to 
be very fine, shiny, or irridescent scales. As if these 
wings had been sprinkled with powdered rainbow. 
Butterflies and moths, on this account, are called scale- 
winged insects. 

When visiting flowers, the scale-winged insect is 
seeking its food, which is the sweet juice of flowers. 
It has a long, tubular tongue or proboscis, which is 
rolled up when not in use, and is unrolled and stretched 
out, when the bottom of a flower is to be reached. 

The few weeks that Papilio lives are busy ones. 
When not gathering food 
she is finding the apple or 
wild thorn, perhaps, for 
a birthplace for her fut- 

_ Caterpillar of Papilio. 

ure children. bhe never 

sees her children. Very fortunate, you may think, 
when you come to know that her infants are ugly, 
crawling caterpillars. 

The truth is, that these ugly babes can take care of 
themselves from the moment they are born, if they are 
born in the right place. They are hatched from eggs, 
in some cases beautiful eggs, shaped like vases and 
caskets. These eggs are fastened to the leaves of 




no 



LIVING CREATURES. 



plants; and the mother, during her brief life, is seek- 
ing to deposit her treasures upon that particular plant 
which, after her caterpillar infants are hatched, will 
afford them their proper food. 

Does the child resemble its mother? Look at both 
very carefully. The caterpillar is composed of thir- 
teen rings joined together. The three main parts of 




Swallow-tailed Butterfly— Papilio. 



the butterfly's body show the traces of as many rings. 
The caterpillar has six jointed legs on three of the 
rings behind its head, quite like the six legs of its 
mother. These remain with it through life. The four 
pairs of legs on the rear part of its body — called pro- 
legs — are soft, and disappear after a while. The but- 
terfly breathes through holes in its body as does the 



BUTTERFLIES AND MOTHS. I I I 

fly ; so the caterpillar has breathing holes through 
which the air passes in to meet the blood. 

The habits of the two are very different. The one 
flies, the other crawls. The mother sips nectar from 
flowers, and has a small stomach like a thread. The 
child is nearly all stomach, and feeds upon leaves. Its 
destructiveness may be judged by the enormous amount 
it eats. The first day of its life it eats twice its own 
weight. At the end of a month it may have eaten 
forty thousand times its weight. By this greediness it 
lays away a large store of fat. 

To accommodate so rapid a growth, the caterpillar 
needs a new and larger suit of clothes, now and then. 
Its life is only a few weeks long, and during this time 
it changes its skin six times. The skin splits down 
the back and is shuffled off. The skins of some are 
smooth ; of others are hairy, or covered with stiff 
bristles, to protect them against other in- 
sects and against birds. 

After a time this ugly child of a beau- 
tiful mother ceases to eat. It abandons 
the green leaf of apple, or clover, or 
cabbage upon which it has been feed- 
ing, throws off its skin and the lining 
of its stomach, and becomes a pupa. 
Under its chin is a little spinner from 
which issues a silken thread. One pa- Hangring Ch ^ salis 
pilio fastens its tail to a support and runs a silk thread 
around the middle of its body to hold it secure. Some 
kinds merely hang from the tail. In this state it re- 
mains from ten to fifteen days, and is called a chrysa- 
lis — which means gold-colored sheath — because some 




112 



LIVING CREATURES. 



pupae are surrounded by a case ornamented with golden 

spots, as if fastened with nails of gold. 

Is the chrysalis a little coffin with a corpse within ? 

No, indeed; there is a wonderful life in progress. 

Feelers, tongue, legs, and beautiful wings are grow- 
ing. But what does this life feed upon ? 
Ah ! now we have found what that ter- 
ribly greedy caterpillar was doing when 
it was eating up our leaves so outrage- 
ously. It was laying away fat which 
feeds the pupa in the chrysalis, as the 
hump supports the life of the camel 
when he is without his customary food. 
Well, in due time, if no enemy has 
torn it away, the chrysalis splits open 
and the imago, the perfect butterfly 

comes forth, dries its wings, and flies away full-grown. 

The ugly child is at last as beautiful as its mother, and 

as large as she ; and it never grows any more. 




Bound Chrysalis. 



26. THE SILK-WORM. 



Butterflies fly in the day-time ; most moths fly by 
night. When the butterfly rests, its wings are raised 
over its back ; when the moth lights, its wings remain 
flat and extended. Most moths have their wings 
joined. A bristle in the rib of the hind wing passes 
through a loop in the fore wing. 

The antennae of the butterfly stretch out nearly 



THE SILK-WORM. 113 

straight, and end in knobs ; those of the moth curve, 
and in nearly all cases are without knobs. Butterfly- 
caterpillars spin a little ; moth-caterpillars spin much 
more. Some of them make their pupa cases, or co- 
coons, entirely of silk. 

Moths usually wear sober colors. Some are very 
gay and brilliant. Some are large, and others are very 
small. The great owl moth of Brazil measures nearly 
a foot between the tips of its wings. Our little clothes- 
moth expands scarcely a half inch. Some moth-cat- 
erpillars are smooth. Others are covered with bristles 
or spines ; still others emit an offensive odor — all for 
protection against their enemies. 

Moths are more destructive than butterflies. The 
clothes-moth feeds on woolen and furs. The canker 
worm eats the leaves of cherry, plum, and elm. The 
tussock-moth-caterpillar preys upon pear and apple 
trees. The fall web-worm allows very few trees to es- 
cape its mischievous horny jaws. The tomato-worm, 
the tobacco-worm, the cotton-worm are great destroy- 
ers. And all these so-called "worms" are the cater- 
pillars of moths. There is one moth-caterpillar, how- 
ever, whose destruction is turned to good account, and 
a short history of it must be given. 

It is the mulberry silk-worm, so called because its 
favorite food is the mulberry-tree. Not our native 
tree of that name, but the imported white mulberry. 
Prof. Riley, of Washington, has, for nearly fifteen years, 
kept silk-worms on the leaves of the common osage 
orange ; and their silk proved to be of excellent quality. 
This moth-caterpillar has a wonderful history, reach- 
ing back, it is thought, as far as two thousand years 

L. c— 8. 



ii4 



LIVING CREATURES. 



before Christ. China, now famous for its silk indus- 
try, is supposed to be its original home. 

For thousands of years, so the story goes, the 
Chinese would not allow the eggs of their silk-moth to 
go out of the country. At length, about the year 550, 
two monks are said to have brought away to Europe 
a few eggs concealed in their canes. The silk-worm 
is now a purely domestic animal like the dog. So long, 
indeed, has it been fed by human hands, that it has 
lost the power of flight, and is wholly dependent on 
human care, 

Though the cultivation of silk-worms occupies but 
a few months in the year, it requires great care. 

It can not be success- 
fully conducted on a 
large scale. It is good 
work for women and 
aged people, while it 
brings a pleasant little 
income to add to the 
profits of the farmer. 
A single silk-moth 
lays about four hundred eggs, and an ounce of eggs 
will number about thirty-five thousand. During the 
winter the eggs are kept in proper boxes in the cellar. 
When the foliage is sufficiently started in the spring to 
furnish them food, the eggs are brought into a warm 
room — the silk-worm room — where they hatch in five 
or six days. 

When about to hatch, the eggs are spread out upon 
a clean sheet of paper, and over them is laid a mos- 
quito netting, on which are scattered fresh cut leaves 




Silk-worm Moth (after Riley.) 



THE SILK-WORM. I I 5 

of mulberry. As soon as hatched, the worms crawl 
through the holes of the netting and begin to feed. 
They are then carried on the net to the table where 
they are to remain. A busy place is the silk-worm 
room, after life begins. The worms are fed twice a day. 
The newly hatched caterpillar is black or gray, and 
is covered with long, stiff hairs. By and by it grows 
into a cream color, and its hairs disappear. It eats its 
own weight of leaves every day. During the few days 
before beginning to spin, it consumes more than during 
its whole previous existence. To make room for its 
rapid increase it changes its skin four times at intervals 
of from four to ten days. This experience in the silk- 
worm is called "sickness." The time from hatching 
to spinning is about forty days. 




Silk-worm Caterpillar (after Riley). 

When about to spin, the worm ceases to feed and 
throws out threads. The silk comes from a fluid 
within, which issues from a spinneret just beneath the 
lower lip. As the air strikes the fluid it hardens. 
First the worm throws around itself a loose ^silk called 
floss, as a sort of frame-work. Then within this it 
spins a tough, strong, continuous thread, not in circles, 
or round and round, but back and forth — in loops like 
a figure 8. A single cocoon may contain a thread 
four thousand yards long, or about two and a quarter 
miles long. The work occupies three or four days. 



Il6 LIVING CREATURES. 

Imagine how active the head of that creature must be 
during these few days. 

The silken house thus made looks like a pea-nut. 
When it is finished, the worm once more puts off its 
old skin, which it packs into a wad, and crowds away 
in the end of the cocoon. Now it changes into a 
pupa, and so remains for two or three weeks. 

When the cocoons are wanted for silk, as most of 
them are, and not for rearing moths for eggs, the pupa 
within is killed or choked by steam, or by setting the 
cocoons on a tray in an oven heated to a certain de- 
gree of temperature. After the operation of choking, 
the cocoons are dried in the air and are ready for reel- 
ing. It takes from three hundred to four hundred 
fresh cocoons, or three times as many choked cocoons, 
to weigh a pound. Of the former, a pound is worth 
about thirty-five cents, and of the latter, a pound is 
worth about one dollar. 

The reeling of silk from the cocoons is a nice and 
delicate operation. When reeled, the product is known 
as raw silk, and is ready to be twisted into thread and 
to be woven into cloth. 



27. FACTS ABOUT INSECTS. 

The dragon-fly seen about ponds, darting here and 
there on four beautifully colored, gauze-like, net-veined 
wings, is by the French called demoiselle (demwa- 
zel') which means a young lady. Devil's darning- 



FACTS ABOUT INSECTS. 



117 




Dragon-fly. 



needle, and mosquito hawk are its popular names. The 
last name indicates a work these hawks do which 
ought to make friends for them. They never walk ; 
they are always on the wing. Watch them closely and 
see how they dart from right to left in the air, appar- 
ently without moving their wings. 

Crickets and grasshoppers will be associated together 
on account of their long, springing hind legs. The 
first pair of their wings are 
called wing-covers, because 
they cover the second pair 
which are folded under like 
fans. Their mouths are adapt- 
ed to biting. The mole- 
cricket does not hop, and 
has forefeet shaped for bur- 
rowing, much like the digging-feet of the common mole. 
In the same group are included the katydid and the 
cockroach. 

The katydid, which utters its sleepy music, begin- 
ning about the middle of July, is pure green in color, 
like the foliage among which it hides. Both it and 
the cricket make their shrilling sound by rubbing to- 
gether the wing-covers near the place where they join 
the body. These wings have heavy, rough veins. 

Bugs are distinguished from other insects by a pro- 
boscis or beak, which is fitted to pierce the bark of 
plants or the skin of animals from which they derive 
their nourishment. Crickets are biters ; bugs are pierc- 
ers. Among the true bugs may be mentioned the 
aphis, or plant-louse ; the chinch-bug, which is said to 
have cost the Illinois farmers four millions of dollars 



Il8 LIVING CREATURES. 

in a single year by destroying their crops ; the lice 
that afflict human beings and birds; the bed bug which 
infests pigeons, swallows, and human habitations. The 
last two offensive creatures have no wings, and the 
cockroach takes delight in destroying the larger insect 
of the two. 

The cicada (cica'da) or harvest fly, improperly called 
locust, is a bug with a piercing beak which does also 
the work of a saw. This bug appears 
in the latter part of summer, when it 
produces a familiar sound by forcing 
the air into a ribbed or fluted ket- 
tle-drum situated in its abdomen. It 
bores holes in the twigs of trees to 
lay its eggs in. It is not particularly 
injurious. 

Another cicada, called the seven- 
teen-year-locust, appears in some parts 

Cicada-Under side. Qf ^ CQuntry Qnce fo seV enteen 

years ; in other places once in thirteen years. It some- 
times does great mischief. So deep does it bore into 
the apple-tree twigs that they fall off, and much fruit 
is lost. After the eggs are deposited, the parent 
dies and never sees its offspring. The young, when 
hatched, fall to the ground, and seem to know enough 
to burrow into the ground, where they remain during 
the many years of their quiet babyhood, living on the 
juices of roots. 

Beetles are sheath-winged insects. Their fore-wings 
are horny in substance, and are used for wing-covers 
only, and not for flight. Beetles are biters and chew- 
ers, having for this purpose strong jaws, working, of 




FACTS ABOUT INSECTS. 



II 9 



course, horizontally. May-bugs, pinch-bugs, and po- 
tato-bugs, are not bugs, but are beetles. 

One of the most interesting of this order of insects 
is the tumble-bug, which was held sacred by the Egyp- 
tians, and whose figure is inscribed on their monu- 
ments. Our tumble-bugs are nearly like it. The ball 
they roll, often up hill, one pulling and the other 




Egyptian Tumble-bugs. 

pushing, contains an egg. The little globe is composed 
of the droppings of horses and cattle; and this ma- 
terial seems to be selected because it will become heat- 
ed, and thus help the egg to hatch. A hole is sunken 
in the ground to receive the ball, and to this nest the 
struggling little heroes are trying to move their rolling 
treasure. 

The insect races are more numerous than the tribes 
or species of other animals. The number of different 
kinds of beetles, alone, which have been examined, is 
about a hundred thousand. 



120 LIVING CREATURES. 



PART 2. 



Flies have each but one pair of wings, and include 
gnats, mosquitoes, horse-flies, blue-bottle flies, and a 
host of others. The " blue-bottle " is larger than the 
house-fly, and is regarded as a pest and an enemy to the 
housekeeper and the butcher. Blue-bottle flies are at- 
tracted by the smell of meat, and manage to deposit 
their eggs upon this food, though it be covered with 
wire netting or with cloth. The eggs hatch in about 
twenty-four hours, and the larvae are the maggots which 
are so detestable. However, this vexatious visitor does 
a great deal of good by helping to get rid of decaying 
animal matter. 

How wonderful is the increase of flies ! Mr. Keller, 
an English naturalist, has calculated that the early fly 
lays eighty eggs at each of four times during the sea- 
son. The first generation after her lay four times ; the 
second three times, the third once; and the offspring 
of these again deposit eggs, so that, should all the 
eggs hatch and produce flies, the original fly would be 
the parent and grand parent of two millions of chil- 
dren. Enemies and accidents must remove a great 
many of the eggs or of the young flies. 

Many insects seek to deposit their eggs upon the 
substance that furnishes the proper food for the larvae 
which are hatched from their eggs. For this reason 
the blue-bottle fly searches for meat; the potato-beetle 
finds the potato plant ; and the moth of the tomato- 
worm deposits upon the tomato or the potato vine. 
Sometimes a mistake is made. A meat-eating insect 



FACTS ABOUT INSECTS. 121 

has fastened its eggs to a plant which has the odor of 
meat, and the young, when hatched, died. 

A lady in Missouri, who watches insects closely, 
found that a certain butterfly which deposits its eggs 
upon the wormwood plant, when this plant was scarce, 
selected a kind of artemisia, which in some respects 
resembles the wormwood. When the larvae hatched 
they died of starvation, because the artemisia was not 
their proper food. 

The tribe of insects, which includes bees and ants, 
embraces other kinds that attract attention. Never kill 
a wasp until you have seen the ingenious house she 
has built, and which she has covered with sixteen 
thicknesses of paper. Long before paper was invented, 
and when men were scratching their thoughts on bark 
and chips and skins, this little cousin of the bee and 
the ant w r as gathering the fiber of wood, chewing 
and spreading it out as thin as a letter sheet. The 
wasp was the first paper-maker. 

Wait a moment while you dip your pen in ink. 
What is good black ink made of? One thing very 
necessary to it is an acid that is found in oak-galls. 
This acid is called gallic acid. What makes the oak- 
galls, or oak-apples, as they are commonly called? 
Toward the close of the growing season, our red oak 
sometimes bears a large number of these galls. The 
galls that help to make the best ink come from China. 

The gall is not a natural fruit of the oak, but is pro- 
duced by an insect ; in some cases by an aphis or 
louse, in other cases by a gall-fly which is cousin to 
the wasp. This insect stings the oak-twig to make a 
place for its egg;. Around this wound with an egg in 



122 LIVING CREATURES. 

it, the tree produces an apple-like swelling in which 
the sap turns to an acid. The gall-fly, therefore, is the 
ink-maker, as the wasp is the paper-maker. 

The sting of the stinging insects, such as bees, 
wasps, and so forth, is at the end of the abdomen. 
The same organ is used to deposit the eggs. The 
wasp saves her sting after inflicting a wound ; the bee 
usually leaves her sting in the wound and then dies, 
because the sting takes away a part of her bowels. A 
very intelligent gentleman has found that the wasp 
fails to make a painful sting if, when she begins to 
pierce the skin, he holds his breath. This experiment 
can easily be tried by stirring up a wasp's nest. 

PART 3. 

The agricultural ants of Texas have been patiently 
and carefully watched by Rev. Mr. McCook. These 
ants clear away the weeds and grass from a piece of 
ground seven to twelve feet in diameter. Nothing is 
permitted to grow on the cleared space, or disk, ex- 
cept a needle-grass which is called ant-rice. This 
plant they allow to grow, that they may gather the 
seed which it bears, and store it away in their under- 
ground galleries for winter use. On this account they 
are called harvesting ants, and they fulfill the words of 
King Solomon: "The ants are a people not strong, 
yet they prepare their meat in summer." 

For such very insignificant creatures that are only 
about a half inch long, the clearing of this farm is a 
tremendous work. But they work together, and they 
work with a will. With their jaws they cut, pinch, 



FACTS ABOUT INSECTS. 



123 




Agricultural Ants. 



pull, twist, and tear. Sometimes one climbs to the 
top of a weed and bends it over by her weight, while 
another cuts it off near the ground. When bearing 
their burdens along the roads which they make, one 
does not turn out to let his fellow pass, but walks 
right over him. Among themselves they never quar- 
rel. They help one another out of difficulties. They 
work a while and then rest. When eating they some- 
times sit up like squirrels. 

Much time is spent by them in combing and clean- 



124 LIVING CREATURES. 

ing themselves. One ant cleans its fellow. It lifts 
the fellow's leg and licks it ; then licks the fellow's 
head and neck; then the breast. Then the cleaner 
goes away — the fellow cleansed "all this time/' says 
Mr. McCook, "seeming pleased as a dog when his 
back is scratched." 

Ants talk by signs. When a slave-making ant is 
hungry, it will pat the head of its slave with its feel- 
ers ; then the servant immediately supplies the wants 
of its mistress. The sign for marching is a tap on 
the side. The red ants will sometimes starve rather 
than help themselves. Some ants, therefore, are slug- 
gards; and it was not to these, but to the harvesting 
ant that Solomon bid the human sluggard go. 

Ants are very strong, and a single one will carry in 
its jaws a burden twenty-five times its own weight. 
Ants have their seasons of play, when they jump, 
caper, and dance on their hind legs. They wrestle, 
and carry one another in their mouths. 



28. AMONG THE FISHES. 



When one steps into the water and finds how easily 
he sinks, the swimming of fishes seems a little mys- 
terious. The puzzle arises, not when the swimmers 
are in motion, for we ourselves can swim by the proper 
use of arms and legs. The fish at rest, with motion- 
less fins and tail, as if standing in the water — this is 
what we wonder at. 

The puzzle is far from being a knotty one. The 
boy is much heavier than the amount of water which 



AMONG THE FISHES. 125 

his body displaces. Not so with the fish. Its weight 
is much more nearly as light as the water in which it 
swims. Then there is the swimming bladder, which 
young fishers find within the fish, lying just under the 
backbone. This connects with the mouth, and is 
filled with air or emptied, at the will of the fish. Hence 
it is quite easy for the finny creature to rise or drop 
in the water, and to stand still, with little or no mo- 
tion of the fins. 

A common river-chub must be called up here that 
the names of fins and other parts may be learned. 
Behind the head are the pectoral fins (pf), one on 




Fig. 11. Common Chub. 

each side. Still further back and below are the ventral 
fins(T/), another pair. These pectoral and ventral fins 
correspond to the arms and legs of human creatures, or 
to the fore and hind legs of quadrupeds. On the back 
is the dorsal fin {df\ Some fishes have two dorsal 
fins. On the under side near the tail hangs the anal 
fin (a/). Then comes the tail, or caudal fin {cf). 

The pectoral and ventral fins enable the fish to bal- 
ance itself so as not to turn over on its side. The 
dorsal and anal fins keep it in a straight line when it 
moves, while the tail fin is the oar or scull, which 
works from side to side, and makes the fish go. The 



126 



LIVING CREATURES. 



eye has no lid. The nostrils are a little in front of the 
eyes. The ears — where are they? Fishes hear, be- 
cause gold-fishes kept in ponds are trained to come to 
their meals at the ringing of a little bell. 

Some fishes make noises, evidently for the purpose 
of calling their mates. The cat-fish utters a gentle, 
humming sound, perhaps to call its young; for it 
broods its young as a hen broods her chickens. Fish 




Bull-head. 



have organs for hearing, and these are near the back 
of the head. They are covered — not open; and the 
hearing nerve connects with the air-bladder, as if to 
carry sound through the body. The sense of touch is 
in the lips. Bull-heads and cat-fish have long barbels 
hanging from the sides of their mouths. Quite likely 
these are feelers like the whiskers of a cat. From 
this resemblance the cat-fish gets its name. 

On the side of the head is the gill cover {'gc). 
You may watch its motion in the gold-fish or the min- 
now. The gills within are so arranged as to bring the 
cold red blood of the fish in contact with the air 
which is mixed in the water. The water passes in 
at the mouth, over the gills, and out under the gill 



AMONG THE FISHES. 



127 



covers. This is the way in which the fish breathes. 
Some kinds of fish have teeth in the jaws, while oth- 
ers are toothless. Their food is mostly worms in- 
sects, and other fish; though some, like the pond- 
carp, feed on vegetable matter. The mode of eating 
is to swallow the food whole; and this explains the 
reason why fish may be caught with a hook. No fish 
would be apt to swallow a hook after chewing it. 




The fish impresses us as a bony animal, indeed very 
bony. It has a backbone, and its skeleton is inside 
of its soft parts instead of outside, as is the case with 
insects. Nothing is easier than to examine the skel- 
eton of a fish when it lies on the dinner-plate. 



PART 2. 



The scientific and sporting books have a way of 
speaking slightingly of certain fishes as "boys' fish." 
Thus they put aside the common sucker as "one of 
the numerous tribe of boys' fish which may be found 
on every urchin's string." ^ Here is a list of the boys' 
fish : Minnows, chubs, roach, dace, shiners, and suck- 



128 



LIVING CREATURES. 




ers. These are popular with boys, and with girls, too, 
because they may be found in small streams and ponds, 
where there is slight danger of being drowned. They 
bite readily, and when caught, are easily handled, be- 
cause they have no 
teeth in the mouth, 
and their fins are soft. 
The boys' list, it 
must be confessed, 
are all poor eating. 
Thoreau says, "the 
chub is a soft fish ; it 
tastes like a piece of brown paper salted." Without 
doubt this is the solemn truth ; but who can make a 
boy believe it, particularly if he has himself caught a 
chub ? The first fish I ever caught was a beautiful sil- 
ver shiner about six inches long. All these small, soft 
fish seem to have bones mixed up with their flesh as if 
to stiffen their sides, like corsets. When my little 
shiner was cooked and on my plate, I found it terribly 
full of bones. Nevertheless, no one could convince me 
that it was not the most delicious morsel in the world. 
When the young fisherman or fisherwoman finds a 
sunfish (pumpkin seed) taken by the hook, then the 
boys' list is left behind, and something like the "game 
fish" is reached. A game fish is one which makes good 
eating, bites vigorously, and, when once hooked, resists 
so earnestly as to make the catching exciting. The lit- 
tle, nearly round sunfish is one of a group of cousins 
which includes the yellow perch, the log-perch or rock- 
perch, and all other perches ; the yellow bass, the white 
bass, the black bass, the striped bass of the sea, and 



AMONG THE FISHES. 



129 




V:« 



the delicious crappie of the Mississippi River. You 
will notice that all these fishes have on the back, in 
front of the usual dorsal fin, a first dorsal fin composed 
of very sharp spines. You will be more impressed 
with the sharpness of yyy 

these fins when you 
come to take a bold, 
wriggling, spiny fish off 
your hook. Look out 
for the spines ! 

Another company of 
cousins is the salmon W 

family. They have 

soft fins but fierce teeth. The great salmon, which run 
up the large rivers from the sea to deposit their eggs in 
small streams so that the young fry may be far away 
from their enemies — these are called the monarchs 
among all game fish. No cat can climb a tree more 
nimbly than a salmon will shoot up the rapids, or leap 
up a rushing fall of water. With the salmon belong 
the lake trout, the white fish of the Great Lakes, and 
the exquisite brook, or speckled trout. These fish are 
without the large scales which belong to most fresh- 
water fish. 

The little bull-head with its barbels hanging from its 
lips, and with a head nearly as large as the remainder 
of its body, is a near relative of the different kinds of 
cat-fishes which inhabit rivers, lakes, and sea. The cat- 
fish of the Mississippi often weighs a hundred and fifty 
pounds. 

The cat-fish of Central Europe weighs as high as four 
hundred pounds. Cat-fish are all hungry, barbarous, and 

L. C— 9. 



130 



LIVING CREATURES. 



cruel ; and scarcely any fish escapes their jaws, except 
the spiny perch family. Of the European cat, great 
fish stories are told. One was said to have swallowed 
a woman with a ring and a purse of gold. An appar- 
ently true account, however, states that on the 3d of 
July, 1700, a cat-fish was caught at Thorn, Prussia, in 
the stomach of which a small child was found. But 




California Flying-fish. 

none of these stories need alarm the young fisher of 
bull-head or pout. 

In mudholes and ponds in the country, are some- 
times seen worms which look like animated horse-hairs. 
Country boys are sometimes told that these wriggling 
swimmers actually come from horse hairs accident- 



AMONG THE FISHES. I3I 

all>' dropped in the water. A still more foolish story 
is that eels grow from hair-worms. The truth is that 
the hair-worm comes from an egg, like other worms, 
and the eel is a real fish. A strange sort of fish, un- 
doubtedly. It has the head of a fish, though without 
gill covers, and it has also a pectoral fin. Its dorsal 
and anal fins run along nearly one third of the body. 
Eels are found most abundantly in those waters which 
communicate with the sea. 

The flying-fish and the stickleback must have a word. 
The former, to escape its pursuing enemy, with a 
spring of its tail, leaps into the air. Its pectoral fins, 
you observe, are developed something like wings. The 
California flyer " flies for a distance sometimes of nearly 
a quarter of a mile, usually not rising more than four 
feet. When on the wing it resembles a large dragon- 

fly." 

The little sticklebacks are found in some rivers on 
the Atlantic coast. The black bass is 
one of the few fishes that take any care 
of their youncr It builds a saucer-like 

J to Stickleback. 

nest on the bottom, where the eggs 
are deposited, and where, when hatched, the fry are 
carefully protected. But the stickleback builds a nest 
somewhat like that of a bird. The male gathers weeds 
and erects a barrel-shaped house. He secretes a mar- 
velous kind of mucous in his body, which, as soon as it 
comes in contact with the water, grows firm and hard. 
With this he cements his nest. Sticklebacks, on ac- 
count of this interesting architecture, are sometimes 
confined in aquariums. Their nests in the water are 
often the subjects of pleasant pictures. 



132 



LIVING CREATURES. 



29. ROMAN FISH PONDS. 



Eels are to the sea what hawks and owls are to the 
air. They are the terror of most other fish, and they 
attack their prey by day and by night. Hidden in the 
mud or beneath some overhanging rock, they dart out 
with open mouths and with great fury. The murry eel 
abounds in the Mediterranean Sea, and in nearly 
all warm seas. It does not hesitate, when oppor- 
tunity offers, to satisfy its appetite by attacking human 
flesh. This fact shows that the story of Pollio, which 
is here given nearly in the words of Mr. Houghton, is 
quite probable. 

Red mullet and murries seem to have been special 
favorites with the old Romans like Hortensius, * ' those 
blessed fish-pond gentlemen," of whom Cicero speaks 
with contempt. The murry was highly esteemed for 
the delicacy of its flesh, and for its fine flavor. These 
murries would become so tame that they would come 
at their master's call, and take food from his hand. 
Hortensius actually shed bitter tears when a favorite 
murry died in his ponds. 

Another celebrated Roman, named Crassus, had an 
equally tender heart. He could not stop his tears at 
the death of his fishy darling. But he had a ready 
wit as well as a soft heart. When his brother-senator, 
Domitius, called "Brazen-head," twitted him in the 
Senate for having cried as much at the death of an eel 
as if he had lost a daughter, Crassus replied that it 
was more than old Brazen-head had done for any one 
of his deceased wives ! 



ROMAN FISH PONDS. 1 33 

Varro, a Roman writer, says: "A friend of mine, 
Hortensius by name, had fish ponds at Bauli, con- 
structed at great cost. I have often been with him at 
his residence, and I know that, instead of eating his 
own fish, he would send to Puteoli and buy fish. He 
used to feed the fish with his own hands, and would 
show a great deal more anxiety, if his mullets were 
hungry, than I show r ed when my asses wanted feed- 
ing. I am content with one slave to feed my asses. 
Hortensius employs a host of fishermen who are con- 




Common Eel. 



tinually sent out to catch heaps of little fish for big 
ones to eat. He felt more anxiety about a sick fish 
than about a sick slave.' ' 

Murries are the fish which, according to Pliny and 
others, a certain Roman knight named Pollio kept. 
Pollio was a friend of the Emperor Augustus. He 
used to feed his fish with human flesh. One reason 
for this terrible practice was that he was unfortunate 
with his slaves. When they were waiting on his table 
they were careless or clumsy, breaking dishes, or up- 
setting decanters and other tableware. If a servant of 
Pollio was so unfortunate as to break a valuable piece 
of glass or crockery, he would have to pay the pen- 



134 LIVING CREATURES. 

alty, then and there, by being thrown into the fish- 
pond. This was the order: 

Whoever breaks the glass or dishes, 
That man becomes the food of fishes. 

Well, on one occasion the Emperor Augustus came 
to sup with Pollio, when he was, of course, richly en- 
tertained. The best dishes, the finest vases, the best 
wine appeared on the table. As might be expected 
in the presence of an emperor, the servants behaved 
with propriety, and no accident at first happened. 

The fish went off swimmingly, and so did the rest 
of the dinner; but not so the dessert. An unlucky 
servant made a slip and broke a crystal goblet ; where- 
upon his master ordered the offender to be at once de- 
livered over to the pet murries, in the very presence 
of the emperor. 

The man knew his doom ; so he fell at Augustus' 
feet and begged him to intercede in his behalf with 
his master. He did not fear to die — it was not al- 
together that ; but he thought it hard that a man, 
though a slave, should be gobbled up or nibbled to 
pieces by fish. 

But Pollio would not listen even to the emperor ; 
whereupon Augustus very properly took the matter 
into his own hands. He pardoned the slave and set 
him at liberty ; ordered all Pollio's glass and china to 
be smashed, and his fish ponds to be filled up. I 
suppose the emperor made it up with Pollio soon 
after this affair. At any rate, it is stated that when 
Pollio died, he left a large part of his property to 
Augustus, 



I GO A FISHING. 1 35 



30. "IGOA FISHING. 



So said Simon Peter. And the seven other disciples 
said, u We also go with thee." Some of these disci- 
ples, when Jesus first met them, had been fishing, and 
were then mending their nets. They left their nets and 
boats to follow him, but it seems that they occasionally 
repaired to the Sea of Galilee to go a fishing, for the 
purpose of getting necessary food and for recreation 
or sport. 

If the fish in this sea were of the same varieties that 
abound there now, we may know something about 
those which Simon Peter and his friends caught. Dr. 
Tristam, visiting Palestine in 1863, collected from the 
Sea of Galilee fifteen species of fishes. One kind was 
nearly like our bream or shiner, only much larger. 
Other species resembled the cat-fish in having barbels 
hanging from a large snout, but differed from the cat- 
fish in being clothed with large scales. Another was a 
species of eel, without scales, and of a black color. 

The fish of the Sea of Galilee are now, as they were 
eighteen hundred years ago, exceedingly abundant. 
In ancient times they were caught with a net; probably 
never with a hook. Dr. Tristam witnessed the present 
method of taking them. "An old Arab sat on a long 
cliff and threw poisoned bread crumbs as far as he could 
reach ; which the fish seized, and turning over dead, 
were washed ashore and collected for market." 

The shoals presented a marvelous sight, for many hun- 
dred yards black with the masses of fish, the back fins 
projecting out of the water as thickly as they could be 



I36 LIVING CREATURES. 

crowded. It is no wonder, then, that in ancient times 
the net broke on account of the multitude of fishes. 
When the net was drawn ashore, the fish were sorted. 
They gathered the good into vessels, but cast the bad 
away. We know pretty well what the "bad" were; 
they were the eel-like fish, which were forbidden by 
the Jewish law to be used as food, because they had 
no scales. (Lev. xi:io). 

It is likely that the hook is older than the net. 
There are evidences that savages, long before history 
was written, used fish-hooks made from the bones of 
animals, and even from the jaw-bone of the human 
head. From the remote ages until now, the spear has 
been used in clear waters for killing fish. The ancient 
Egyptians made hooks of bronze, and our Saxon an- 
cestors made hooks from flints. The ancient Sythians 
practiced a droll method of catching the great cat-fish 
in the river Danube. The fisherman drove a pair of 
oxen to a convenient point on the river bank and set 
them at feeding. 

He laid the yoke down near the edge of the water, 
fastening a rope to it. To the other end of the rope a 
strong hook was attached, baited with liver and weight- 
ed with a sufficiently heavy sinker. The hook was 
then cast into the middle of the stream. By and by a 
huge fish finds the bull's meat, which he dearly loves, 
opens his immense jaws, swallows the morsel and starts 
off on his course as many another poor glutton of a 
fish has done. 

The fisherman observes this performance with de- 
light; jumps to his feet; yokes his oxen, and then 
there is a great contest between the strength of two 



I GO A FISHING. 



137 



oxen and one immensely powerful fish. The oxen, of 
course, prevail, and the monster is drawn ashore. 

In these days, the fisherman is assisted by a multi- 
tude of devices. From the net or the seine to the pin- 
hook of the child, there are hooks of all sizes and pat- 




Speckled Trout. 

terns; lines of linen and lines of silk; no end of snells, 
bobs, flies, and jugs for cat-fishing ; poles of bamboo 
and costly woods, reels and scoop-nets. Game fish 
are taken with worms, minnows, and flies natural and 
artificial. But successful fishing is in the skill of the 
fisher as much as in the fine tackle he uses. To catch 



138 LIVING CREATURES. 

a brook-trout is a to cast a fly gracefully, so that it will 
fall in the right place like a snow-flake or a winged in- 
sect," and when he is hooked, to land him. 

Says the good Isaak Walton, " God never did make 
a more calm, quiet, innocent recreation than angling." 
We all need, like Simon Peter, to go a fishing — old 
and young, girls and boys. Another * ' brother of the 
angle " says, ' ' Sometimes the parents take the children 
a fishing. Whenever they do, they should supply 
them with a light bamboo rod, and attach at a joint 
one third from the top end a fine silk or linen line; 
then affix a float according to the depth of the water, 
so that the bait will sink within six inches of the bot- 
tom, and a foot above the hook fasten to the line from 
one to three split shot. 

"Let the hook be of the minnow size, and let the 
bait, dug the day previous and laid in moss or grass 
over night, merely cover the point of the hook. Never 
bait with the head of a worm ; always break that off 
and throw it in the water." 

" I love to see the man of care 

Take pleasure in a toy ; 
I love to see him row or ride, 

And tread the grass with joy, 
Or throw the circling salmon fly 

As lusty as a boy. 

"The road of life is hard enough, 

Bestrewn with slag and thorn ; 
I would not mock the simplest joy 

That makes it less forlorn, 
But fill its evening path with flowers 

As fresh as those of morn. 



ANOTHER VIEW OF FISHING. 



139 



31. ANOTHER VIEW OF FISHING, 



There are some people who conscientiously think 
that fishing is a cruel amusement. While we should 
never, needlessly, inflict pain upon any living creature, 
it is well to reflect that the world of fish is any thing 
but a paradise of peace. It is a scene of constant 
war and fighting. Fish have no sympathy or tender- 
ness. Big fish eat little fish when they can catch 
them. Great fish enter into combats, one with an- 



Mh: 




..,v# 



Black Bass. 



other, like fierce tigers. Even pet fish in the aqua- 
rium occasionally turn on their companions and de- 
vour them. 

It is well, also, to know that all cold-blooded ani- 
mals have no very keen sense of pain, and that the 
water-breathing fish, jerked into the air, dies by air- 
drowning as easily as an air-breathing animal dies by 
water-drowning. There are some who think fishing 
an idle and foolish amusement. Such will take com- 
fort from Dr. Samuel Johnson, a distinguished English 



I4O LIVING CREATURES. 

writer of a hundred years ago, who describes fishing 
as " a stick and a string with a fool at one end and a 
worm at the other." For the comfort of such the 
verses of Dr. Walcott may be quoted, who thus ad- 
dresses the innocent fish, without hooking him : 

" O harmless tenant of the flood, 
I do not wish to spill thy blood ; 

For nature unto thee 
Perchance has given a tender wife, 
And children dear, to charm thy life, 

As she hath done to me. 

"Enjoy thy stream, O harmless fish, 
And when an angler, for his dish, 

Through gluttony's vile sin 
Attempts — a wretch — to pull thee out, 
God give thee strength, O gentle trout, 

To pull the rascal in!" 



32. TOADS AND FROGS. 



The toad, named Bufo, is a droll, humorous, wag- 
gish fellow. He has no visible means of defense. 
He can not bite, for he has no teeth. He can not 
scratch, for he has no claws. Yet he comes out at 
night-fall, and looks you in the eye as if he were con- 
scious of his safety. It is observed that neither the 
cat nor the dog will touch him. This is because from 
some glands behind his head, he sends forth a fluid 
which is biting and offensive, though not poisonous. 

There is a real sense of fun in Bufo. He will play 



TOADS AND FROGS. 



141 




Common Toad. 



with sticks, throwing them about. He snaps in fire- 
flies with his darting tongue, and he has been known 
to appropriate lighted matches in the same way. He 
fills himself with stinging bees, and seems to regard 
the performance with great satisfaction. He has been 
tamed, and taught to come at the call of his name. 
A toad was once kept as a pet for thirty-six years, 
and knew all his friends. 

Some slight differences are noted between Bufo and 
his cousin Rana, the bull-frog. Bufo is covered with 
warts, Rana has a smooth skin ; he also has teeth on 
his upper jaw. Each has four fingers in front and five 
toes behind. The tongue in both is fastened at the 
front of the jaw, and is free behind ; so that it can roll 



142 



LIVING CREATURES. 




out and catch an insect by the aid of a sticky gum 
which it carries, and then turn back with its prize, so 

quickly as scarcely to 
be seen. 

Of frogs, the tree- 
frog, the pond-frog, 
and the bull-frog are 
most familiar. The lit- 
tle tree-frog, or tree- 
toad, is hard to find, 
because his color is so 
much like the bark and 
foliage of the tree. His 
toes are remarkable. 
Tree-toad. They end in cups or 

suckers, by which the little climber is able to cleave 
to the tree. Tree-toads are good weather prophets, 
and in Germany are sometimes used for barometers. 

This instrument is, mainly, a glass tube, in which 
mercury rises and falls according to the pressure of 
the atmosphere. In a similar w T ay a long or high bot- 
tle is furnished with a very small ladder. Tree-toad 
is put in the bottle, and climbs up or down the ladder 
according to the pressure of the atmosphere. 

The bull-frog lives in quiet waters where, in early 
summer, he tunes his instrument — a violincello, per- 
haps. You may hear him snapping the strings, and 
then rolling out his roaring bass notes. Some people 
detect in his notes the words, " Bloody thunder ! bloody 
thunder!" The hind legs of Rana are regarded as 
very delicate food. 

Toads and frogs, when stripped of skin and flesh, 



TOADS AND FROGS. 



H3 



show a skeleton much like ours. But they have no 
ribs. Our ribs act in such a way as to fill our lungs, 
and enable us to breathe. Frogs and toads breathe 
in a different manner. They take a mouthful of air, 
then close the mouth and nostrils, and swallow the 
air. They breathe partly through the skin. The way 
to smother a man is to stop his mouth and nose. The 




Bull-frog. 

way to smother a frog is to keep his mouth and nose 
open. A frog, though, has been known to live forty 
days by breathing through his skin, after his lungs had 
been taken out. 

What a marvelous nursery and cradle is the water 
in which are born and reared so many tender things, 
some of which never again return to this home of 
their babyhood, when once set free in the air or on 



144 



LIVING CREATURES. 



the ground ! Here the toads and frogs pass through 
some wonderful changes from the egg to the complete 
form. These changes are easily seen and watched in 
the aquarium. 

The eggs, or spawn, are laid in a kind of jelly, which 
fastens them to a stick or plant in or very near the 
water (i). After about a month the eggs hatch, when 




Fig-. 12. Eggs, Tadpoles, and Frogs. 

there appear very small tadpoles, with head and tail, 
and a pair of holders behind the mouth (2). Outside 
gills grow, and become large, like plumes (3). You 
remember for what purpose are gills in the clam and 
oyster. Then the gills disappear (4 — back view 5). 
Hind legs put forth (6). Fore legs follow (7). As the 
legs grow, the tail shrinks away (8). The tail goes, 
and the perfect little frog comes (9). 

All this time changes have been going on within the 
tadpole. When the outside gills passed away, inside 



SNAKES. 145 

gills, like those of the fish, came. As these disap- 
peared, lungs took their place. When all the changes 
are accomplished, the little frogs are ready, with the 
first warm rain, to start out and try the land. Some- 
times they hop a long distance from their watery nurs- 
ery, and people who know nothing of their history, 
think they have rained down. 

During winter, frogs lie buried in the mud-bottom 
of a pond. Toads hide themselves in similar places, 
or under stones. All have musical voices, which re- 
peated attention will enable one to distinguish, so as to 
tell which is that of the toad, which is the frog's, and 
which is the tree-toad's. The bull-frog's double bass 
no one can mistake. At the close of winter and frost, 
the trilling notes from the ponds are a pleasant an- 
nouncement of spring. 



33. SNAKES, 



The dread of snakes is common to many animals, 
to monkeys and to human beings. Children, and 
monkeys raised in cages, on the first sight of snakes 
shrink from them with terror. Pigs do not mind them. 
This dread comes partly from ignorance about snakes, 
and partly from the fact that some snakes inflict a 
deadly wound. Pigs are not injured by poisonous 
reptiles. 

If we knew more about these creatures they would 
not excite our fears so much. Some people are almost 



l. c- 



146 



LIVING CREATURES. 



as badly frightened by mice and beetles, as by snakes. 
One peculiarity of these creepers, which makes them 
dreadful, is that they move so obscurely and silently in 
the grass. Then they are cold-blooded like toads, and 
the touch of them is not agreeable. On the other 
hand, snakes are useful, as their bill of fare shows, and 
they are truly beautiful. The scaly, many-colored, and 




Rattlesnake. 



glistening skin of some of them is as handsome as the 
feathered garb of beautiful birds. 

The movements of snakes are graceful. The back- 
bone of some snakes is composed of more than three 
hundred parts; and to each of these parts is attached a 
pair of ribs. How quickly and easily it turns and coils 



SNAKES. 147 

its supple body ! How mighty is the coil of the python 
that will kill a deer ! 

The snake has no feet, as feet are commonly under- 
stood. It moves by its backbone and by its ribs. On 
the under side of the body are scales, one of which is 
joined to each pair of ribs. The pairs of ribs move 
forward and backward, and the scales attached to them 
catch on the rough ground with each motion. This 
operation gives the animal its gliding gait. The snake 
is adapted to swimming, and to climbing trees, but it 
would make bad work trying to crawl on glass. 

The bones in the head of the snake are joined by 
elastic ligaments) so that it is able to swallow animals 
much larger than its head appears to be. Snakes 
never chew their food, but swallow it whole. Their 
eyes have no eyelids. Their hearing is dull. All 
snakes are as "deaf as an adder. " The forked tongue 
is the feeler — nothing else. There is no harm in it. 
The teeth are simply for holding the prey ; not for 
chewing. There is no poison in them, and their bite 
is harmless. 

In temperate climates, snakes lie torpid during the 
winter. When active, they, like all other animals, are 
seeking for food. The common ones are after insects, 
frogs, mice, rabbits, fish, and birds. They have no 
power to charm animals. Snakes either catch their 
prey and immediately swallow it, or they wind their 
coils about it, as do black-snakes and boa-constrictors; 
or they thrust poison fangs into it, and thus cause its 
death. No snake, not even the python or the boa, 
seeks human flesh for food. Neither threaten nor harm 
a snake, and, as a rule, it will let you alone. 



148 



LIVING CREATURES. 



In our country there are three, and only three kinds 
of snakes that inflict injury on human beings. These 
are the snakes that have poisonous fangs. The fangs 
are entirely distinct from the small holding-teeth. They 
turn back upon the upper jaw, when not in use; and 
are thrust forward, when the snake is about to strike. 
A sac at the root of the fang contains the poison, 




Copperhead. 

which is sent down a groove or canal in the fang and 
thrown into the wound, at the will of the snake. 
Poisonous serpents sometimes bite without using the 
poison. 

The three kinds of venomous snakes are the rattle- 
snake, the copperhead, and the water-moccasin of the 
South. These have the poison fangs. No others have 



SNAKES. 



149 



them. You may handle grass snakes, milk snakes, 
spreading adders and racers, and none of them can do 
you serious harm. The bite of most of them is scarcely 
more than the prick of a pin-point. 

In some Northern and Southern states the rattlesnake 
is black, and is called massasauga. Elsewhere it is usu- 




MQecasin. 

ally more or less distinctly spotted. In the Southern 
States it is adorned by diamond-shaped spots, and is 
called the diamond rattler. The Oregon rattlesnake has 
round spots ; while that of many states is called the 
banded rattlesnake. 

The number of rattles on the tail indicates nothing in 
regard to the age of the animal. The use of the rattle 



I50 LIVING CREATURES. 

has been a good deal of a puzzle. The copperhead re- 
sides in a more southern latitude. It has a dark brown 
head, and reddish spots on its body. I have several 
times met it, and have killed it, but never saw it show 
a very fighting disposition. The water-moccasin is 
olive brown in color, and is more dreaded than all 
others, because it is more irritable, and more disposed 
to attack. 

The young of all serpents are produced from eggs. 
At regular periods snakes slough, or throw off, their 
skins, a bright new covering taking the place of the old 
garment. 



34. HOW A TURTLE TAUGHT A LESSON. 

The following sketch by Mr. E. S. Thayer appeared 
some years since in St. Nicholas, and is inserted here 
by permission. 

About thirty years ago, there was a little boy whose 
name was John — a pretty boy, with thick, golden hair, 
large, brown eyes, red cheeks, and freckles. One day, 
in summer, he was playing by the side of a brook in 
one of the pastures near his home in the country. 
The brook resembled the boy in some respects. It 
was in its first light-hearted youth, and went on its 
way, leaping and sporting. 

This active little boy first built a dam of moss and 
turf and stones ; then he rolled up his trousers and 
sailed his little schooner-rigged boat; and, finally, 



HOW A TURTLE TAUGHT A LESSON. 1 5 I 

waded aimlessly over the smooth sand through the 
cool, running water, dashing the sparkling drops to 
right and left with his frisky feet. In this way, he 
came to a large, flat rock, over a portion of whose 
smooth surface the stream flowed in a broad, crystal 
current. 

A mud-turtle sat on the rock, half out of the water, 
enjoying the pleasant sunshine, apparently as contented 
and happy as a turtle could be. But when he saw the 
boy splashing along at such a rate, he thought it high 
time to be gone ; perhaps he had previously had ex- 
perience of the tender mercies of boys, for he made 
great haste to reach the protecting mud of the bank. 

" Ah, ha, you rogue! you think you can get away, 
do you?" shouted the youngster. The next instant 
he was kneeling on the slippery rock, with both hands 
outstretched over the prisoner. John had been carry- 
ing his shoes — his stockings stuffed into them — with 
one hand ; but now, in his eagerness to secure the turtle, 
he dropped them upon a part of the rock covered by 
the stream, and, turning sideways as they fell, the 
water rushed in, filling them to the very toes. 

"There!" exclaimed John, half in real and half in 
affected vexation, ' ' you have made me get my stock- 
ings wet, and you must be punished for it. I shall 
turn you over on your back, and you may stay there, 
sir, until I come back from school to-night." 

That night, John came home from school, with a 
group of school-fellows, over the village road, instead 
of across the pasture, forgetting all about the turtle 
he had left on the rock. Vacation began the next 
day, and John was to spend a whole month with his 



152 LIVING CREATURES. 

brother who lived in Boston. You can understand 
the excitement which attends a boy's preparations for 
his first journey ; but a country boy's first visit to 
Boston exceeds, perhaps, any experience of yours in 
that line. 

The month passed swiftly away, and John returned 
home with brighter eyes and prouder step. The world 
had been revealed to him on a broader scale. What 
had he not seen? He was a hero in the opinion of 
his school-mates. He had enough stories to tell of 
his adventures to last through the winter. 

If possible, he was a merrier boy than before, who 
now bounded through the dear old pasture. There 
were several dams visited by their young proprietor, 
one somewhat extensive, with a miniature water-wheel 
and mill at the side. The dam had been partially 
washed away by a violent rain, and an accumulation 
of moss had clogged the wheel of the mill. "Ah! 
I see there has been a freshet, and my mill is dam- 
aged. These freshets are terrible things for manufact- 
urers, I declare ! " 

Leaving the scene of this disaster, he approached 
the smooth, white rock, which was always a favorite 
resort, and near which, on the bank of the stream, 
there was a structure of brick about two feet high, 
which this young man called "my summer residence 
on the Hudson." 

Six yards from the rock, he suddenly paused, with 
his eyes intently fixed upon some object before him. 
Step by step, he drew nearer without once moving his 
eyes, which were now full of horror mingled with a 
hopeful doubt ; but as he proceeded, the doubt van- 



HOW A TURTLE TAUGHT A LESSON. 



153 




IIUP^ 



John and the Mud-turtle. 



ished, and the horror spread over his whole counte- 
nance. There lay the turtle on the rock, upon its 
back, as he had left it— its extended legs and head 
shriveled and dry, scorched by the blazing suns of 
four August weeks. 

There was no need of gentle pity now — no oppor- 
tunity for showing humane kindness to a dumb, harm- 
less creature. No more would it gladly hide itself in 
the protecting earth, or hasten in fright from the 
dreaded hand. What vain struggles to regain its feet ! 
What weariness and despair ! What agony when the 
noon suns beat down ! What pangs of slow starva- 
tion ! As all this passed through John's mind, the 
rock seemed no longer the old, familiar spot. 



154 LIVING CREATURES. 

With pallid face he turned away, and hurried home 
in the gathered twilight, nor stopped until he reached 
the cheerful room in which his mother sat sewing and 
his father reading. 

That boy has long been a man, but the years that 
have passed have by no means worn away the remem- 
brance of this scene, or the impressions it left on his 
mind. And on that memorable evening John took 
his first lesson in kindness toward dumb animals. 



35. THE BOX-TORTOISE AND ITS KIN. 

The tortoise, or turtle, is appropriately called "an 
animal in a box." It is an animal with a backbone; 
and a most singular specimen of the backboned or 
vertebrate animals it is. Insects, as we saw, have 
their skeletons on the outside, and their soft parts — 
flesh and so forth — inside. The backboned animal, in 
nearly all cases, has its skeleton of bone within, and 
its soft parts without. But here is an animal that has 
a bony skeleton both inside and outside. 

The inside bones of the turtle grow through the 
flesh and spread over the body above and below, mak- 
ing a box with holes for the head and the legs to pass 
out and in. This shell is covered with horny plates, 
which, when taken from a particular kind of sea-turtle, 
are the tortoise-shell of which combs and match boxes 



THE BOX-TORTOISE AND ITS KIN. 



155 




are made. The head is covered with horny substance 
to protect it. The jaws are hard and are without teeth. 
The shell-box is so stiff that the turtle can not breathe 
in the ordinary way. Hence it breathes like the toad, 
by swallowing the air. The food of the box-tortoise 
consists of insects, of toad-stools and mushrooms. 

The main difference between the land and the water 
turtles is that the former has stubby feet, while the 
latter has webbed or 
finny feet for swim- 
ming. Our common 
turtle likes to live 
both on land and in 
the water. There is 
a kind of box-tor- 
toise which despises 
the water, exists 
wholly on land, and 

sometimes lives to a great age. The Rev. Gilbert 
White, of England, owned one that had lived among 
his friends for forty years. A turtle was found in 
Pennsylvania bearing a date which was known to have 
been cut in its shell before the commencement of this 
century ; and when last found it was more than sixty 
years old. 

The sea-turtles, which are especially abundant about 
the Tortugas Islands, are those commonly used for 
food. The green turtle is preferred for this purpose. 
Some of these sea-turtles grow to an immense size, a 
single one weighing as much as four hundred and fifty 
pounds. The manner of depositing eggs on the sand 
beach of the islands is thus described by Audubon : 



Box- tortoise. 



i 5 6 



LIVING CREATURES. 



"On first nearing the shore, and mostly on fine, calm 
moonlight nights, the turtle raises her head above the 
water, looks around her, and attentively examines the 
objects on the shore. Should she see nothing likely to 
disturb her intended operations, she gives a loud hiss- 







p*l«fii«S?»»*"' 



Green- turtle. 



ing sound by which her enemies are startled and driven 
away. She advances slowly toward the beach, crawls 
over it, her head raised to the full length of her neck, 
and when she reaches a suitable place, she gazes all 
around in silence. 

"Then she proceeds to make a hole in the sand with 
her hind flippers. The sand is raised with one flipper 
and then with the other, as with a ladle, until it is 
piled up behind her. In this manner the hole is dug 
to the depth of two feet. This labor I have seen per- 
formed in the short space of nine minutes. 



LIZARDS AND CROCODILES. 1 57 

"The eggs are then dropped, one by one, and ar- 
ranged in regular layers to the number of a hundred 
and fifty or two hundred. The whole time spent in this 
part of the operation may be about twenty minutes. 
She now scrapes the loose sand back over the eggs, 
and so levels them and smoothes the surface, that 
few persons, on seeing the spot, could imagine that 
any thing had been done to it. This accomplished to 
her mind, she retreats to the water with all possible 
speed, leaving the hatching of the eggs to the heat of 
the sand. " 



36. LIZARDS AND CROCODILES. 

The eye will readily detect the difference between 
the two reptiles, the serpent and the lizard. As the 
snake has a more perfect body skeleton than the toad, 
so the lizard is more complete than the snake, and, be- 
sides, has four limbs. The limbs are weak, and the 
lizard shows its cousinship to the snake by touching 
the under part of its body to the ground. 

Like snakes, lizards have been the subjects of a great 
many notions, stories and superstitions that are entirely 
without foundation. Many stories have been told 
about the basilisk of South America and Mexico. It 
was said that it possessed a deadly poison with which 
it infected the air ; and that the glance of its eye 
carried destruction. The fact is that the basilisk is 
entirely harmless and inoffensive. The lizard called the 
gila monster, of Arizona, gives poison in its bite; but 



i 5 8 



LIVING CREATURES. 




nearly all lizards are wholly inoffensive, while they do 
much good by destroying beetles and other harmful 
insects. 

The horned toad, which is found in some of the states 
west of the Mississippi, in Colorado and California, 

is coming to be well 
known, because it is 
so pleasing as a pet. 
It is not a toad, 
though slightly re- 
sembling one. When 
first caught, a string 
is tied to its horns, 
and it is fastened like 
a chained dog. Soon 
it becomes very tame, 
and will take milk 
and flies from the hands of its friends. It is so bashful 
that, when looked at sharply, it flattens its body and 
pretends to be dead. A little tickling of its sides 
brings back its activity. The dog it especially dislikes, 
puffing itself up when he comes near, and lowering its 
horns and hissing in a most ridiculous way. 

A long step from the lizard brings us to the crocodile 
and alligator, which inhabit tropical rivers. The croco- 
dile sometimes grows to a length of twenty feet. In 
Africa it is very abundant, and is dangerous, sometimes 
catching cattle and antelopes, when they come to drink. 
Livingstone says it frequently captures little children 
at play on the river banks. 

The ancient Greek historian, Herodotus, describes 
the crocodile bird, which is a cousin of our plover. 



Horned Toad. 



LIZARDS AND CROCODILES. 159 

He says that the inside of the mouth of the huge rep- 
tile is covered with leeches ; and that while all other 
birds avoid the crocodile, the trochilus (tro'kilus) lives 
at peace with it. When the animal lies on the beach, 
it opens its mouth wide to let in the fresh breeze. 
Then its little feathered friend enters the mouth and 
picks out the leeches, thus doing great service to the 
monster. Recent travelers have found this story of 
Herodotus to be true. The plover has been seen to 




Alligator. 



walk up and down the back of the crocodile, and to 
enter its mouth. But when the hunter appears, the 
bird screeches and wakes up the sleeping beast, when 
it darts into the water and is safe. 

The alligator of Florida is the American crocodile. 
Its young are sometimes petted, and its skin is made 
use of for leather. Its greatest length is twelve feet. 
It does not attack like the African crocodile. Dog 
meat is especially relished by it, and alligators are said 
to assemble on hearing the whining of a puppy. Like 
other reptiles of their kind, crocodiles and alligators 
lay eggs, which are left in the sand to hatch. 



l60 LIVING CREATURES. 



37. AUBUBON. 



Audubon (O'dubon) was a great friend of birds — 
you may have learned that. But do you know that 
he was one of the great toilers who endured hardship 
and danger to find out, and to put into convenient 
form our knowledge of birds? One little incident in 
his life will show how T much such knowledge costs. 

In the forests of Florida, Audubon discovered a 
small gray bird, in color so nearly like the trees upon 
which it was busy that it was almost impossible to see 
it distinctly. He could not rest until he had found 
out about it. He, therefore, procured a field-glass or 
telescope, made a bed of moss in a concealed place, 
and there lay most of the time for three weeks, watch- 
ing the movements and ways of a pair of these little 
gray birds. By this painstaking he was able to write 
their history. 

For fifteen years he roamed through the forests and 
over the wild plains of America, with gun, knapsack, 
and dog. He visited the homes of wild birds from 
Florida to Labrador, and from the Atlantic to the 
wilds of the Missouri River. He was exposed to all 
weathers and climates ; to heat, cold, and storm. He 
not only studied the habits of birds, but with his 
pencil he drew their forms, and with his brush he 
painted their natural colors. Then he published to the 
world two volumes, of elephant folio size (twenty- 
three by fourteen inches) containing the written his- 
tory and the colored portraits of over a thousand 
birds of America. 



AUDUBON. l6l 

To secure a publisher for this immense book he 
must go to Europe. He landed in England with only 
one sovereign in his pocket, and without friends or ac- 
quaintance. Within two years, in 1828, he had won 
for his work the hearty interest of the kings of England 
and France, and had made friends of such great men 
as Sir Walter Scott and Baron Cuvier (CiiVea) the 
great naturalist of France. 

By making pictures of animals and selling them, as 
he said, "at a price scarcely more than the wages of 
a common laborer," he paid his ordinary expenses. 
All this time he was inducing men of wealth to sub- 
scribe for the book he was trying to publish, at one 
thousand dollars a copy. Of these subscribers he ob- 
tained a hundred and seventy, and completed his great 
undertaking within five years. 

It may be interesting to know what sort of a boy 
grew into such a man. John James Audubon (which 
was his full name) was born in 1780 in Louisiana, and 
died in New York in 185 1. He was not poor as were 
some of the boys who became great men. His father 
was a Frenchman, who had gained wealth in St. Do- 
mingo and in Louisiana ; and his life began under or- 
ange-trees, among flowers, and in hearing of the wild 
mocking-bird's song. 

His youth was spent at his father's country home 
in France, where, by a kind step-mother, he was in- 
dulged in all that a boy could wish. He pursued the 
ordinary school branches, and by the famous artist 
David was taught to draw and to paint. He learned 
to play the flute and the violin, and' became an ac- 
complished dancer. What a singular preparation for 
l. a- 11. 



1 62 



LIVING CREATURES. 




John James Audubon. 



a life that must be spent in the camp, in swamps, and 
woods, and that must be supported on wild fowl, 
roots, and herbs. 

Arrived at young manhood, with plenty of gold, he 
came to this country and lived by himself on a beauti- 
ful farm in Pennsylvania, which his father had previ- 



AUDUBON. 163 

ously purchased. Here he was gay, and fond of dress. 
He even hunted in satin breeches and low pump shoes. 
As during his childhood in France, so now when he 
was grown, he was always trying to gratify his passion 
for birds. He had a fondness for all animals, and was 
skillful in training dogs. 

But poverty came to him at last. Through the 
carelessness and failure of agents, his property was 
lost. Having married, he removed to Kentucky, where 
he tried to be a merchant, but failed. He then made 
his home in Louisiana. His early sports in hunting 
and fishing had helped to give him a good physical 
constitution. His polite training fitted him for winning 
the friendship of all sorts of people. 

PART 2. 

A single anecdote will give something of Audu- 
bon's earlier experiences. He had to cross the wild 
prairie in southern Illinois alone, except the presence 
of his dog who was his constant companion. When 
night came, the distant howling of the wolves encour- 
aged him to hope that he was near the wooded coun- 
try where a camp-fire might be enjoyed. Soon a light 
gleamed ahead, and a log cabin was at length reached. 
Here a tall, haggard woman appeared, who consented 
to allow the traveler to lodge in the cabin. By the 
fire within sat a young Indian who refused to talk. 

Having supped on venison and fed his dog, Audu- 
bon took out his gold watch and remarked to the 
woman that, as it was late, he would like to retire. 
She cast a longing look upon the treasure, and Audu- 



164 LIVING CREATURES. 

bon, to gratify her, allowed her to take the watch and 
to put its chain about her neck. She was greatly 
pleased, and declared she would be the happiest v/oman 
if she owned such a treasure. 

This aroused Audubon's suspicion. Then the Indian 
passed by him and gave him a severe pinch in his side. 
He now studied both the woman and the red man, 
but concluded that of the two the latter was his friend. 
After a while, for the purpose of winding it, he asked 
the woman for his watch. Taking his gun, he said he 
would go out and see what the weather promised. 
Once outside the cabin, he slipped a bullet into his 
rifle, scraped the flint of its lock, and primed it with 
powder. 

Re-entering the cabin, he lay down on some bear- 
skins in the corner, with his faithful dog by his side, 
and soon pretended to be sound asleep. Shortly, two 
strong young men entered, bringing the carcass of a 
deer. They asked the mother why that rascally Indian 
was there, when she hushed them, pointed to Audu- 
bon in the corner, and softly spoke of the watch. All 
this, in the glare of the firelight, the stranger could see 
with his half-open eyes. He touched his dog, who 
looked up and seemed to understand what was going 
on, as if he were human. 

When the young men had eaten their supper, the 
three drank a quantity of whisky, and the woman, 
like a grim fiend, taking a large carving-knife, went to 
the grindstone to whet its edge. Audubon saw her 
pour the water on the stone and turn the crank. It 
seemed to him that his life was in great danger, and a 
cold sweat started over his whole frame. Having made 



AMONG THE BIRDS. 1 65 

the weapon sharp, she returned to her sons and said, 
" There, that'll settle him! And then for the watch! " 
Audubon silently touched his dog, cocked his rifle, 
and was ready to shoot the person who first attempted his 
life. He had almost risen to fire at the woman, when 
the door burst open and two stout travelers entered. 
Audubon sprang to his feet, and the Indian bounded 
up and danced for joy ; for he, like Audubon, had lain 
in fear of his life. The whole story was soon told, 
when the woman and her sons were bound, and the 
next day were carried away and punished. 



38. AMONG THE BIRDS. 

With a group of wild mallard ducks in view, we be- 
gin to learn something about birds. Do you expect a 
definition of a bird ? Let me the rather ask you the 
question, What is a bird? and leave you to answer it. 
I think I hear some bright girl saying, " A bird is an 
animal that flies." Is it, indeed? Is a bat a bird, and 
are there no birds that do not fly? What about the 
ostrich, and the penguin which has no feathered wings 
to fly with? 

Another suggests something about feathers. Ah ! 
that springs a thought in the right direction. Now run 
over in your mind all the different kinds of animals 
you can think of, and see whether any of them besides 
birds have feathers. It would be well to get some 
feathers — a wing, for example — and examine them 



1 66 



LIVING CREATURES. 



closely, placing a barb of the vein under a microscope, 
if possible. 

Procure the bones of a bird — that ought to be easily 
done — and see how the frame of the creature is built, 
and how the different parts suit the habits and pur- 
poses of the bird's life. The foot is an interesting 
piece of mechanism. Have you never found, at the 
joint where the foot and the " drumstick" meet, a 
tendon or cord which, by being pulled, will draw the 
claws in ? 




Mallard Duck. 



You can find it in the chicken's foot; see if it is also 
in the duck's foot. And now give a reason, if you 
can, why, when a chicken holds to its roost all night, 
its foot does not grow tired. If the same arrangement 
should be found in the duck's foot, of what use would 
it be, since the duck does not perch? You would find 
your hand very tired were you compelled to grasp a 
pole for eight hours without rest. 



AMONG THE BIRDS. 1 6/ 

For the purpose of learning something about their 
general ways and habits, birds may be divided into 
three large groups : birds of the water, birds of the 
land, and birds of the air. One thing, however, must 
be kept in mind, and that is, that a bird has a definite 
object to live for. This object is threefold ; namely, 
to secure and to eat its food; to protect its young; and 
to escape from danger. 

The duck is certainly a water bird. It can fly, but 
it can not easily perch, nor can it scratch like a chick- 
en. It is made to get its food, to rear its young, and 
to escape from danger in or about the water. The 
duck's body, you will see, is shaped like the keel of a 
well-made boat. Compare the wish-bone or merry- 
thought of a duck with that of a chicken, and see how 
much better the duck's keel is suited to sailing. Then 
compare the feet of the two, and decide which foot is 
the best paddle. The chicken's foot has scarcely any 
web connecting the toes ; the duck's foot has a web 
extending to the ends of the three front toes. 

You have noticed, I suppose, that the duck has a 
ludicrous walk. Some very fat tm] 

people walk in the same way c ife>^ /fllbs- 

Watch a race between chickens ^^^^^^^^S^^^^ 
and ducks when all are called to 'J^ 

be fed. How soon the ducks are /4P^ 

left behind. Then watch a hen 

while the ducklings she has hatched sail on the water— 
they so happy, and she so miserable. Then the hen is 
left behind. It is not difficult to decide which one 
belongs to the water and which one to the land. 

The duck's feet are wide apart, and its legs are joined 



1 68 LIVING CREATURES. 

to the body far back toward the tail, like the paddle- 
wheels of a steamboat. The duck's food is largely in 
the shallow, muddy bottom. Its bill is rather flat and 
broad, and on the inside is furnished with plates like 
strainers, by which the food is retained, and the mud 
and water are strained out, and run away. 

The duck finds in the water a protection from dan- 
ger both for itself and for its young. It can swim 
swiftly away from enemies that might catch it on shore, 
and when surprised by the sportsman, it can dive and 
move for some distance under the surface. The duck- 
lings are covered with down, and can swim and dive as 
soon as they are hatched, so that they, too, find a com- 
paratively safe home in the water. 

PART 2. 

The canvas-back, the mallard, and the fat little teal 
are the ducks chiefly sought by the sportsman. The 
tame Rouen duck is really a mallard, and the drake 
may be known by the green head, white ring about 
the neck, glossy, black back, and silver-gray under- 
feathers. 

The wild duck is cunning. It often dives, and re- 
mains out of sight, leaving the spectator to wonder 
where it can be. But the sportsman has found that, 
having swum to shallow water, the bird will lie with 
its bill and nostrils out of water until danger is over. 

The nest of the duck is made under a bush not far 
from the water. In twenty-eight days the nine or 
eleven eggs hatch. The mother-bird plucks the feath- 
ers from her breast, to cover her eggs. From this 



AMONG THE BIRDS. 



169 



habit the costly down of the northern eider-duck is 
left to be gathered. When the young are hatched, 
the mother hurries them to the water to escape the 
craft of foxes, minks, and snakes. 

Wild geese and swans are relations of the duck. 
Both make a great show of defense, the goose by 
hissing and the swan by whistling. They make their 
summer nest far north, but travel southward in the 
autumn. Wild geese are frequently seen flying very 
high in the air, in two lines coming to a point like a 
wedge. In this way they cleave the air more easily. 
Flying in the night, they make a doleful noise so that 
they may keep together. 

The tame goose is a very ancient member of the 
poultry-yard, much more so than the tame duck. 
Homer and other 
Greek writers speak 
of it. The Romans 
kept geese in walled 
yards, hatched their 
eggs under hens, and 
plucked their feathers 
twice a year. Pliny, 
greatly distressed at 
the luxurious habits 
of his fellow Romans, 
writes: " Luxury has 
come to such a pitch 
that now-a-days men will not rest their necks unless 
upon a pillow of goose-feathers. " 

Although ducks and their cousins have paddle-feet, 
they sometimes, to avoid the dangers of the ground, 




'Wild Geese. 



I/O 



LIVING CREATURES. 



build nests in trees. How the ducklings reach the 
ground is not known. Of tree-nesting geese, the Rev. 
Gilbert White, of Selborne, England, who spent forty 
years in studying animals, says: 

"The geese in Richmond Park do roost on trees 
and make their nests in old oaks, conveying their 
young to the ground under their wings. All this be- 
cause, when they made their nests on the ground, the 

water-rats destroyed 
their eggs." This be- 
ing true, it is but just 
to add that this bird 
is not half so much of 
a "goose" as people 
generally suppose. 

Does the swan ever 
sing? Pliny says, 
when about to die the 
swan retires and sings 
most sweetly. Ben 
Jonson called his 
friend Shakespeare 




fMorrrpoT^ 



King Penguin. 



the "sweet swan of 
Avon." Sharp eyes 
and ears spoil the old fables. The swan never sings. 
It is worth little except for its beauty. 

The loon, the guillemot, and the penguin are more 
thoroughly water birds than is the duck. Their bills 
are differently shaped because their food is fish. The 
loon, called also the great northern diver, is the prince 
of all divers. It will dodge a close shot. It is, how- 
ever, "as stupid as a loon," for a bright-colored flag 



WATER-SKIMMERS AND FLYERS. I7I 

floated on the water will so attract its attention that it 
may forget to dive at the right moment, and then 
falls a victim of the bullet. It has a long and power- 
ful wing. 

The loon's legs are set further back than the duck's 
legs. It is impossible for this bird to stand except in 
a perpendicular attitude. The penguin of the Ant- 
arctic seas is more closely confined to the water than 
the loon. Its wings are without feathers and are used 
in swimming. It can not fly, and is like the seal 
among milk-giving animals. 



39. WATER-SKIMMERS AND FLYERS. 

And a good south wind sprung up behind; 

The albatross did follow, 

And every day, for food or play, 

Came to the mariners' hollo! — Coleridge. 

Passing from the birds that swim, dive, and use the 
water to live and move in more than the land or the 
air, we come to those that are so constructed as to 
hover over the water, or to wade in its shallow edges 
in quest of fish-food. Those that pick their food from 
the surface of large waters, are provided with long and 
strong wings. Those that enter the edge of the water 
for the same purpose, are fitted with long legs and long 
necks. The bills of all fish-eating birds are strong 
and have sharp, cutting edges. 

Among the sea-flyers the albatross is distinguished. 



172 LIVING CREATURES. 

It weighs about fifteen pounds. When its wings are 
extended, the distance between the tips of them is 
eleven feet. The albatross will follow a ship for hun- 
dreds of miles, to pick up the refuse which may be 
thrown upon the water. It is furnished with webbed 
toes so that it may rest and swim on quiet water. 
" When one of these great birds swoops past the ob- 



Wandering Albatross. 

server, almost within reach of his hand, it is easy to 
realize the strength which carries him as he cleaves 
the air on those huge wings. 

"The breeding grounds, both in the Northern and 
Southern hemispheres, are upon rocky headlands or 
oceanic islands, and are crowded by countless num- 
bers of birds. There sit the females or the males, as 
the case may be, upon the solitary dirty egg placed 
in a slight hollow in the ground. So close are they, 
frequently, that it is difficult to walk between them, 



WATER-SKIMMERS AND FLYERS. 1 73 

while they take no further notice of the intruder than 
to pick viciously at his legs. Here, often, on the very 
spot where this long-winged bird is cradled, a pen- 
guin may afterwards bring up a nestling whose wings 
bear no feathers." 

Gulls of many varieties skim about the sea and the 
inland lakes. They belong with the birds that have 
strong flying power, with bills for fishing, and webbed 
toes for swimming, when it is necessary to sit on the 
water. Their nests are made in the sand of the beach. 
There are many varieties of gulls. 

The tern, or sea-swallow T , may be counted as one of 
these. Pearly white, gentle and harmless, with small 
red legs and webbed toes, it does much to relieve the 
soberness of the sea-coast. But the ladies' hats have 
demanded its life. What would old Pliny say if he 
were here, and should find that forty thousand of these 
lovely birds were slain in one year, merely to get their 
wings for ornaments? 

The pelican has full-webbed feet; that is, a web 
joins all four toes instead of three of them as in the 
case of the duck. It is found 
on the Florida coast, and has 
a bill about a foot long. At- 
tached to its under jaw, is a 
pouch which holds a gallon, 

Or perhaps Six pOUnds Of fish. Pelican's Foot. 

Into this bag the game is re- 
ceived as soon as it is caught, when the bird retires to a 
sunny beach and devours the food. There is something 
here to remind one of the cheek pouches of some monk- 
eys, and of the stomachs of cud-chewing animals. 




174 LIVING CREATURES. 



40. WADING BIRDS AND SHORE BIRDS. 

I come from haunts of coot and hern : 

I make a sudden sally, 
And sparkle out among the fern 

To bicker down a valley. — Tennyson, 

It is Tennyson's Brook that speaks, and it comes 
from a wild pond which is the haunt of the coot and 
the heron. While the reader is learning about the 
heron, let him learn by heart the whole poem of The 
Brook. The habits of the different kinds of water-feed- 
ing birds are leading us to the shallow edges, and will 
soon carry us entirely away from broad sheets of water. 

The coot is the common 
little mud-hen of the marshes, 
and is interesting because of its 
lobed foot, which has flaps 
on the sides of the toes. The 
heron, the stork, and the 
crane are usually to be seen 
at the zoological gardens. 
The stork is a European bird, 

American Coot. L 

and in some localities is quite 
domestic. These waders have long necks ; this is be- 
cause they have long legs. The neck must be long 
enough to bring the bill back to the ground from which 
the legs take it away. 

Of the several kinds of heron, the large blue heron 
is distinguished by its long sharp bill, the plume or 
crest on its head, and the dull blue color of its upper 
parts. It wades into the water and stands perfectly 




WADING BIRDS AND SHORE BIRDS. 



175 



motionless, while watching for a fish to pass by. In 
this position it may wait for hours, until the fishes con- 
clude that the legs are nothing more than a pair of 
sticks. Then it darts down its bill with perfect aim 
and lightning speed, and seldom fails to seize its prey. 

The Florida flamingo is a long-legged, snaky-necked 
wader with a beautiful 
scarlet plumage. It has 
a duck's webbed foot 
which must help it to 
walk on the water-cov- 
ered mud where it 
feeds. The great length 
of neck enables it to 
work its bill upside down 
in the mud. On a slight 
elevation of earth it 
builds its nest, and when 
the female is sitting, she 
folds her long legs like 
a carpenter's measuring 
rule. 

Cranes are either white 
or brown, and are without 

crest-plumes on their heads. In their wild haunts they 
are given to sports and games, and have often been 
seen jumping and dancing, bowing, and flapping their 
wings in the most ludicrous manner. The large white 
whooping crane has in its breast a long windpipe, two 
and a half feet of which are coiled up, like a French 
horn, under its breast-bone. This gives it the power 
of producing a loud whooping sound. 




Great Blue Heron. 



176 



LIVING CREATURES. 



The crane was in favor with the Greeks and Romans 
because of its yearly visit and its delicate flesh. Thus 
Homer, the greatest Grecian poet, sings: 

So when inclement winters vex the plain 
With piercing frosts, or thick descending rain, 
To warmer seas the cranes embodied fly 
With noise and order through the mid-way sky. 



Homer, and Aris- 
totle, a Grecian phi- 
losopher and natural- 
ist, both refer to the 
destruction which the 
cranes bring to the 










wheat fields. They 
describe a race of 
pygmies, or dwarfs, 
who inhabited, it was 
supposed, a part of 
upper Egypt. Upon 
the newly-sown wheat 
fields of these little 
people, the cranes sud- 
denly descended from 
the high air. When 
the pygmies ran out 
to drive away the 
mischief-makers, the cranes gobbled them up and car- 
ried them off — so the story goes. 

Leaving the waders and the water, we find the legs 
and feet of the birds change. The legs are shorter, 
and the feet are not fully webbed. Some of them are 



Flamingoes and Nest. 



WADING BIRDS AND SHORE BIRDS. 



177 




not at all webbed, while others, like some sandpipers' 
feet, are half-webbed. The snipe family love the damp 
or marshy ground, for into this they thrust their long soft 
bills that are provid- 
ed with the sense 
of feeling. The bill 
feels for a worm as 
sensitively as if it 
were a finger. The 
woodcock, now be- 
coming rare at the 
East, where it has 
chiefly lived, is the 
most interesting of 
the snipes. 

It has a striking 
head. Its eye is 
strangely located, and 

its ear is under the eye. Both old and young are 
marked so much like the ground and the moss, that it 
is difficult to discover them. Their brooding habits 
are quite peculiar. An English sports- 
man and naturalist says: "From 
close observation I found that the old 
woodcock carries her young, even 
when it is larger than a snipe, not in 
her claws, but by clasping the little bird between her 
thighs." 

Where neither snipe nor woodcock abound, shore- 
walkers may perhaps be seen. The plover and the sand- 
piper are closely related to the snipe. So is the lap- 
wing spoken of on page 8. 

L. C.— 12. 



White Whooping Crane. 




Half-webbed Foot. 



i 7 8 



LIVING CREATURES. 




The Storks of Delfth. 



41. THE STORK. 



This bird is a near relation of the heron, and has 
long and slender legs, and a long and rather thick 
neck. The bill is of the same length as the head, and 
tapers to a point. 

In the countries where it lives, the stork is cher- 
ished with the utmost affection. In Holland, the 
people in the towns and cities place wooden boxes or 
frames on the tops of the houses or chimneys, to in- 
duce the storks to settle there. The birds are per- 
fectly tame, and are thought to bring prosperity to 
the person who entertains them. 

In the winter the stork goes away to Egypt or some 
other warm country, and comes back with the swal- 
lows. The ancient Egyptians almost worshiped it, 
and it was one of their sacred birds. The reason why 
this bird is so much beloved is because it destroys the 
snakes, and rats, and mice, and other unpleasant creat- 



THE STORK. 



179 



ures that infest the town. It settles fearlessly upon 
the chimneys and roofs of the houses, and builds a flat 
nest of sticks, lined with twigs and straw, and dry 
grass. There are laid three or four eggs of a bluish- 
white color, and it takes thirty days to hatch them. 

In Holland and Germany the stork rears her young 
in the utmost security on the tops of the houses, and 
even walks about in the most crowded streets amid 
men, women, and children, without the least danger. 
To harm a stork is considered an act of barbarity. 
The young birds come out of the shell, covered with 
down, and remain in the nest until the end of sum- 
mer. The parents watch over them with the greatest 
attention, and feed them by putting food into their 
mouths from their own beaks. Nothing could ever 
induce a stork to leave her young ones ; she would 
rather remain and perish with them. 

There was once a great fire in the city of Delfth, 
Holland. The flames spread to a house on which a 
mother stork was rearing her young. The little ones 
were too weak to fly, and their parents did all they 
could to carry them away. They made many and 
desperate efforts, but it was all in vain, and the little 
ones were obliged to remain in the nest. 

Meanwhile the fire came nearer and nearer, and you 
would think the old storks would be frightened and fly 
away. But no ; they still refused to leave their little 
ones, and staid close by them. Even when the 
flames closed round the nest they did not stir, choos- 
ing rather to die with their young than desert them. 

After such a touching history, one does not wonder 
that the stork is respected and beloved. 



i8o 



LIVING CREATURES. 



42. BIRDS OF THE LAND. 

They are brought to mind by the crowing of the 
cock in the yard ; by the cackling of the hen in the 
hay-loft ; by the gabbling of the strutting turkey 
gobbler; by the brassy clicking of the shy guinea- 
fowl ; by the shrill, doleful cry of the gorgeous pea- 
cock, and by the cheerful whistling of Bob White sit- 
ting on the fence. These birds of the land may fly 




Group of Quails. 



or perch, but the ground is their home. Here they 
find their food, make their nests, and rear their young. 
What tools have they for life on the ground ? They 
must dig for worms, grubs and insects. They must 
be able to peck through a chestnut-shuck or hazel-nut. 
They have a host of enemies to contend with. Foxes, 
rats, weasels, and opossums on the ground ; and 
hawks, owls, and eagles in the air, are watching for 
their flesh, .and they are an almost constant terror by 



BIRDS OF THE LAND. 



181 



day and by night. These they must either fight, or 
escape from by flying or by running. 

A short, stout beak, with the upper jaw turning its 
sharp point a little down over the under jaw, gives 
them a good instrument to peck with. What could 
they do with the bill of the duck, or the crane, or the 
woodcock ? The leg is of medium length, is set near 
the middle of the body, and is suited to running. The 
foot ends in four toes. The hind toe is set a little 
higher than the three front ones, and is long enough 
to cling to the perch. The front toes have scarcely 
any web between them, and are armed with thick, 
strong claws for scratching. What could these birds, 
that must scratch for 
a living, do with such 
claws as ducks and 
snipes have ? The 
wings are strong, and 
rather round than 
pointed ; but they are 
good for flying short 
distances. 

Every one, who as 
a child lived in the 
country, retains pleas- 
ant recollections of 
Bob White. His true name is Virginia partridge. He 
is ten inches long, and he has a very near relation — 
the ruffed grouse — which is sixteen inches long. In 
New England and the North, tin's grouse is called a 
partridge, and Bob White a quail. In the Southern 
states Bob is named a partridge. 




California Quail. 



1 82 LIVING CREATURES. 

Bob White's habits are similar to those of his near 
kin — the prairie-hen, the ruffed grouse, the California 
helmet quail, and several other scratching birds. The 
nest is made on the ground, usually in a tuft of grass 
under a bush. From twelve to twenty white eggs are 
there deposited, and when the brood is hatched they 
are far more lively than chickens. I have often come 
upon the little hen-quail with her chicks. She is then 
a most skillful actor. She flutters before my feet, pre- 
tends to be lame, and to have a broken wing. 

The growing brood becomes a flying flock or ' ' cov- 
ey." The covey keeps very closely to the ground. 
They run swiftly. They roost on the ground. On 
trees or bushes they would be too much at the mercy 
of hungry owls. When preparing for the night, they 
huddle together in a close circle with their tails at the 
center and their heads at the circumference, so that, 
when surprised, they may fly in all directions. 



43. THE CAMEL-BIRD. 



The true camel-bird is the ostrich of the African 
plains. Its kindred are the South American ostrich, 
or rhea, and the emu of Australia. The African os- 
trich has two toes, and the others have three toes on 
each foot. The feathers of none are so fine as those 
of the camel-bird. When full-grown, this bird stands 
about seven feet high, and weighs from a hundred to a 
hundred and fifty pounds. Its wings are too short for 



THE CAMEL-BIRD. 1 83 

flight, although they help to increase its speed, when 
running. 

The ostrich is strictly a land bird. Its breast is flat 
like a raft, and not keel-shaped like the breast of the 
swimming and flying birds. Its usefulness consists 
almost wholly in the beauty and value of its rich 
plumes. Long before King Pharaoh of Egypt used 
the feathers for royal ornaments, the ostrich and its gay 
dress were known and prized. Since it has become a 
member of the public gardens, and has been introduced 
upon farms in California, great interest has gathered 
about this feathered camel. 

In the wild desert plains, the bird is so shy and 
wary that it is hunted and captured w T ith great diffi- 
culty. The swiftest Arab horse would never run it 
down, were it not that the horse can endure longer than 
the ostrich. 

The nest is scooped out in the surface of the sand, 
and in it several birds may deposit their eggs. The 
males do the sitting, and are more affectionate to the 
young than are the females. During the heat of the 
day the nest is left to the power of the sun. The egg 
of the ostrich is about six inches long, and weighs as 
much as twenty-four eggs of the common hen. 

On the farms in south Africa and in California, the 
eggs are gathered daily from the nests, and are after- 
wards hatched in artificial ovens, or incubators. The 
Romans used something like the incubator for hatch- 
ing. The habit which the old birds have of eating 
stones, bits of iron and glass, pieces of leather, and 
almost every thing that happens to be lying about, 
seems to begin early in life. The young birds are 



1 84 



LIVING CREATURES. 



plucked at six months of age, and about every six or 
nine months thereafter. The feathers of a grown bird, 
at a single plucking, have been sold for a hundred and 
fifty dollars. 

When Rome was at the height of her luxury a dish 
of ostrich's brains was considered a great treat. A 
gluttonous and cruel emperor had as many as six hun- 
dred ostriches killed to make one meal of- brains. 




South African Ostriches. 



"A traveler was once staying in a village where 
there were two tame ostriches. Two little boys used 
to mount on their backs, and have a ride. The os- 
triches would run round and round the village, and 
never seem inclined to stop. At first their pace was a 
trot ; but by degrees they expanded their wings and ran 
very fast indeed, scarcely seeming to touch the ground. 
No race-horse could have kept up with them, though 
the ostriches would have got tired much the soonest." 



BIRDS OF THE AIR — THE PIGEON. 



I8 5 



44. BIRDS OF THE AIR THE PIGEON. 

The pigeon would fare poorly on the ground ;'much 
more so in the water. Its feet look as if they might 
scratch, but they are far from being a match for the 
quail's feet. Ground birds must be runners. But the 
pigeon can fly — indeed it can. The wild pigeon, next 




"Wild Pig-eon. 



to the frigate-bird of the ocean, is the swiftest of fly- 
ers. From seventy to a hundred miles an hour is its 
rate of speed. It seeks safety in its wings. Its food 
grows mainly upon trees. It sleeps in the tree-top. 
It nests there. It is a bird of the air. 

The passenger pigeon is seventeen inches long from 



1 86 LIVING CREATURES. 

tip of bill to tip of tail. The mourning dove of our 
orchards is twelve inches long. The common barn- 
pigeons, and all the fancy birds— pouters, carriers, runts, 
barbs, fantails, tumblers, trumpeters, and so forth, in- 
cluding a hundred and fifty varieties — are derived di- 
rectly from the wild rock-pigeon of Europe. 

Pigeons eat fruit, seeds, and grain. I have shot 
them at their roosts in the far north, and found their 
crops filled with large acorns. I wondered how they 
could swallow, and much more how they could digest 
the hard, bitter things. But the pigeon has a good 
stomach. The crop is double, and softens the hard 
shucks and kernels, after which the gizzard, with its 
pair of ribbed mill-stones, grinds them well. 

The young pigeons are hatched both naked and 
blind, and are carefully tended by the two parents. 
You have heard, perhaps, of pigeons' milk. It is no 
fiction. When there are young to be fed, the parents 
have glands in their crops which secrete or separate 
from the food a kind of milk; and this is the nourish- 
ment which the old birds pump into the mouths of 
their tender squabs. Then the pigeon drinks, not like 
a chicken, but like a horse, holding its bill in the 
water till it has enough. 

The true carrier pigeon, which is now called by fan- 
ciers the homing pigeon, is by far the most interest- 
ing of the tame varieties. It may wear a variety of 
colors, and is a most meek, modest, delicate looking 
creature. Its instinct or love for home has been cul- 
tivated for a great many centuries. It is trained by 
taking it short, and then longer distances from home, 
and allowing it to return on the wing. Even as far 



BIRDS OF THE AIR THE PIGEON. 



187 







.. - i H - 



Homing Pigeon. 

back as five hundred years before Christ, the messen- 
ger pigeon was employed to convey letters between 
lovers. The letters in those days were tied to the 
feet ; in these days the message is tied to the tail 
feathers, as shown in the illustration. The speed of 
these birds is about fifty miles an hour, in a trip of five 
hundred miles. The Romans employed messenger pig- 
eons to convey messages in war. 



LIVING CREATURES. 




Bald Eagle. 



45' 



LIONS OF THE AIR. 



Were the birds of prey arranged in a line accord- 
ing to their sizes, there would be at one end of the 
row the pigeon-hawk eleven inches long, and at the 
other end the South American condor three and a 
half feet long, from bill to tail, and nine feet between 
the tips of its extended wings. 

Young readers in the country are acquainted with 
these "lions" through the chicken-hawk and the owl. 



"lions of the air." 189 

City folk may, perhaps, see the king of the air as a 
captive in the zoological garden. It is fondly hoped 
that every reader carries in his pocket, at least occa- 
sionally, a feeble portrait of him impressed on one side 
of the American silver dollar. 

They are great flyers. The condor of South Amer- 
ica soars to the height of twenty thousand feet above 
the level of the sea. These creatures have a wonder- 
ful power of sight. Vultures and turkey buzzards 
find the dead bodies on which they feed, not by scent, 
but by sight. The fish-hawk, at a height of over a 
hundred feet in the air, can see a minnow under the 
water. The owl at night can discern a bat as quickly 
as a cat spies a mouse in the dark. 

Of eagles there are two prominent kinds in this 
country. The golden eagle lives in mountainous dis- 
tricts. The bald eagle, or "bird of Washington," 
shows itself occasionally in nearly all parts of the 
country. It is not really bald, but when three years 
old has its head covered with white feathers. The 
bald eagle is a grand, princely bird in appearance, and 
for this reason was chosen as our nation's emblem. 
The great and good Benjamin Franklin objected to its 
selection for that purpose, and preferred the turkey. 

The lion of the African desert is not better armed 
for his lordly cruelty than are these lions of the air. 
What beaks they have ! Strong, short, sharp-edged, 
and hooked. What fearful claws! These are the first 
birds we find that use the claw as a hand. The living 
prey — the mouse, the chick or the child — is caught and 
held by the claws, and is borne away. The claws of 
the Alpine eagle are not fitted for this work. 




I9O LIVING CREATURES. 

The story of this eagle causing the death of ^Eschylus 
(E'skilus) may be true ; and if so, it is a warning to 
bald-headed people to wear their hats in the presence 
of great eagles. ^Eschylus was a Grecian poet who 
lived about five hundred years before Christ. On ac- 
count of some serious charges made against him, he 
was banished from his country and took up his resi- 
dence in Sicily. Once, while sitting in a wild and se- 
cluded place, with his smooth and venerable head ex- 
posed, the great Alpine eagle 
was sailing in the air above 
him, carrying a tortoise. 

It is the habit of eagles 
and of some other birds, 
when they have a turtle in 
seizing ciaw. hand, to rise high in the air 

and drop it on a rock so as to break its shell. At 
this moment, when the poor old man was thinking of 
nothing but his heart troubles, the eagle mistook him 
for a rock ; and with wonderful precision, let the tor- 
toise drop on his bald head. And alas ! ^Eschylus 
was killed. 

Eagles, hawks, and buzzards are diurnal birds of 
prey. Owls are nocturnal birds of prey, and are called 
''cats of the air." Nearly all birds have the eyes on 
opposite sides of the head, so that with one eye they 
can watch their prey, while with the other eye they 
can observe the movements of their enemies. 

Owls going out on their hunts at night, are not in 
danger from other stronger inhabitants of the air, for 
these are all asleep. They have only to look for their 
victims ; and, therefore, their eyes are in the face or 



LIONS OF THE AIR. 



I 9 I 




Great Horned Owl. 



front part of the head. They have beaks and claws 
essentially like those of the day-birds of prey. 

Our most common night-birds of prey are the little 
screech owl, about nine inches long ; the barn owl, 
fifteen inches long; the snowy owl, two feet long; and 
the great horned owl of the same length. 



192 



LIVING CREATURES. 



46. MONKEYS IN FEATHERS. 



The monkey is an imitator of man's actions, while 
the parrot is a mimic of man's talk. 

That "Polly" has a high degree of intelligence no 
one can doubt, for he sometimes talks in such a way 
as to indicate that he reasons. A parrot show was 




Gray Parrot. 

held in the north of England, at which prizes were of- 
fered for the best talking powers. Several birds had 
exhibited their efforts, when a gray parrot was let out 
of his cage. Seeing the large company before him, 
he at once exclaimed, "By Jove, what a lot of par- 
rots! " The prize was at once given to him. 

The climbing organs of the parrot are all plain to 



MONKEYS IN FEATHERS. 



193 



the eye. First the bill — how odd and awkward it ap- 
pears ! But it does nice work. The under jaw is a 
stumpy, stubby affair, but presses up, and cuts and 
cracks with great power. The upper jaw turning down 
like a long curved hook, moves up and down on a 
kind of loose hinge. 

The birds of prey make quite a hand of the claw. 
The parrot's claw is still more of a hand. The hawk 
throws three toes 
forward for fingers, 
and one backward 
for a thumb ; the 
parrot extends two 
before, and two be- 
hind for thumbs. 

The little green 
Carolina parrot, or 
parakeet, is the on- 
ly member of the 
order which is na- 
tive to our country. 
It is a genuine par- 
rot. Its color is 
green, with a yellow 
head, and it is about twelve inches long. In former 
times, say seventy years ago, it was abundant as far 
north as the Ohio River, and was seen even at Albany, 
New York. 

The ring parrot, which is also present in the garden, 
is from India and Africa. It was the only one known 
to the ancients. Aristotle, the Greek naturalist, refers 
to it as the " Indian bird which is said to have a tongue 

L. C.-13. 




Carolina Parrot. 



194 LIVING CREATURES. 

like a man, and to be most talkative when intoxicated.'' 
The large gray parrot is from Africa and Madagascar. 
It is the best talker among parrots. 

A parrot in Pennsylvania recently brought about a 
lawsuit. Two men had an angry dispute about a bill, 
in a room in the house of the debtor. As they raised 
their voices to a high key, a shrill voice in the next 
room cried: "Kick him out! kick him out! kick 
him out!" The creditor thought it was the debtor's 
wife who was advising him to commit assault. 

Springing up in a great rage he said he would go 
without being kicked out, but he would surely be 
heard from. He then went straight to a justice of the 
peace, and brought suit. At the trial it was proved 
that it was a parrot, and not the man's wife, who had 
advised the kicking out. 



47. RED-HEAD AND HIS MUSIC. 

Of our ruby-throat humming-bird, Mr. Burroughs 
says: "Nature has given him a jewel upon his throat, 
but no song save the hum of his wings." His wing- 
power is almost a miracle. While he examines a 
flower he stands in the air. His bill is like that of 
the woodpecker, and enables him to draw out an in- 
sect from the bottom of a trumpet-flower. 

Something about their bills gives interest to the 
flicker or yellow hammer, to the little spotted downy 
woodpecker, and to our common red-head. This bill 



RED-HEAD AND HIS MUSIC. 



195 




of the woodpecker does the work of a gimlet and 
chisel. The tongue within the bill is even more re- 
markable. On the end of it are barbs, and it gives out 
a sticky fluid, so that the tongue can 
reach far into a worm-hole and pull 
the victim out of its retreat. 

The toes of these birds are a little 
like those of the parrot. They are yoked. Two are 
thrown before and two behind, so that they can more 
easily cling to the bark or bare wood of a tree's trunk. 
The tail helps a little to hold Red-head up ; for you will 
observe that he presses his tail against the tree. 

Does the woodpecker sing? The Duke of Argyle, 
who lives in Scotland, after watching very closely, con- 
cluded that this bird 
with a chisel-bill makes 
music to please his 
mate, as truly as the 
thrush or robin does ; 
only his music is in- 
strumental. The wood- 
1 pecker is a drummer. 
He often thumps his 
bill on a dead or dry 
limb, merely to please 
his companion. Now 
Red-head. let me describe what I 

have seen and heard. 
One day I was walking on the railroad track, when 1 
heard a tapping and ringing noise from the top of a tele- 
graph pole. The noise began and ended at regular in- 
tervals. Carefully moving my position, I saw him and 




I96 LIVING CREATURES. 

caught him in the act. Red-head had found a better 
drum than a hollow tree ; he was drumming on the 
glass knob, or insulator, of the telegraph pole. 

Several times he flew away and as often returned, 
each time beating the ringing tones from the glass, evi- 
dently as happy as a small boy with a new drum. Had 
I known, when I was a boy, about this musical trick in 
Red-head, I should not, as I frequently did, have left 
his charmed mate a widow. 



48. THE CANARY. 

After the death of my wood-lark I was so grieved 
at the loss, that my father bought me a pair of cana- 
ries, the first of these birds I had ever seen. I was 
delighted, charmed, and never weary, for at least two 
hours, of contemplating the bright yellow dress of the 
male, and the pale, primrose costume of his mate. 

It was spring-time when they were given to me, if 
I remember rightly, and the cage was hung in the 
window of the nursery. How splendidly that bird 
sang! The nightingales in the little beechen copse at 
the foot of the garden, were as nothing compared to 
him, I thought ; and very likely he sang louder than 
they did. After a time, my mother put a little wicker 
basket lined with flannel into the cage, and in a few 
days four or five little pale-blue eggs, speckled with 
brown, were laid. 

The young were hatched in due time, to the great 



THE CANARY. 



I 9 7 



delight of the parent birds who stood together on the 
edge of the basket, attentively looking down at the 
ugly, helpless, pink little things below. 

The origin of the tame canary is, unfortunately, lost 
in obscurity ; for the story that connects it with the 
shipwreck off the Island of Elba and the Canary Isles 
is voted by common consent as unworthy of belief. 
However that may be, there are at the present day 
several distinct varieties of canary. 




Canaries vary in song as much as they do in shape 
and color. Some have the sky-lark, others the wood- 
lark, and still others the nightingale note. Some have 
a song consisting of loud, harsh shrieks which is very 
unpleasant to listen to. A canary, if taught while 
quite young, will generally pick up any air that is reg- 
ularly whistled to it, or played on a flageolet; but the 
lesson must be often repeated. 



I98 LIVING CREATURES. 



49. THE CROW. 

The common American crow is black, like the three 
crows of the old story. It is a foot and a half long. 
The raven is about two feet long, and is simply a larger 
crow. Crows make their presence known by their 
"cawing," which is not a very pleasant noise; it can 
not be called music or song. 

The crow has a fine eye, and a rather long and 
strong beak. The food it prefers consists of insects, 
worms, grubs, mice, moles, and shell-fish — rather soft 
food, you observe. The bill of the bird, though stout, 
is not hard, nor is his stomach adapted to grinding 
and digesting hard food. When a bird has a soft bill 
it also has a soft stomach. 

If a crow is driven by hunger to eat hard corn, he 
seldom swallows the kernel whole, but with the fine 
curved point of his bill picks out the germ or soft 
part of the kernel. In corn-planting time, before the 
mice, beetles, and bird's eggs, which they love, abound, 
the crow-family visit the farmer's planted corn. They 
soon find out that the old men set up about the field 
have neither muscle, blood nor bone ; and they dig up 
and devour the sprouting seed. Why? Because this 
corn has become soft, and the bird can digest it. 

The wit and cunning of this bird in a clerical dress 
is proved, when it becomes a tamed pet. A writer 
in the Indiana Farmer says: "We have a pet crow 
that was taken from the nest last spring, and if there 
is any thing that escapes him I do not know what it is. 
He will carry away knives, spoons, forks, screw-driv- 



THE CROW. 



199 



ers, tape, or nails. One day, while our backs were 
turned, he stole the blueing-bag out of the wash-tub, 
and we had a big chase before we got it again. 

"We have a pup. His name is Gip. The crow's 
name is Jim. The pup and the crow play together 
like two kittens. It makes no difference which name 
we call, they will both come. Mischievous Jim has 







Jim and Gip. 

the advantage of Gip, as he can fly up when he has 
any thing in his mouth that he doesn't want Gip to 
have. Jim can bark like Gip, or laugh like us ; and 
he can make more different kinds of noise in one hour 
than any bird I ever saw, or heard of. He will untie 
our aprons, and will steal every pin from our clothes, 
and all the buttons he can find." 



200 



LIVING CREATURES. 



50. FACTS ABOUT BIRDS. 




Robin's Foot. 



around a twig. 



The foot of the robin, or of the canary, is a poor 
tool for scratching. The long hind toe is sadly in the 
way. On the chicken's foot this toe is short, and is 
set up out of the way. How do these little birds 
move on the ground ? What birds of 
the air walk like the chicken, putting 
one foot before the other? With long 
toes and exceedingly sharp nails, the 
robin's foot is made to cleave tightly 
We call it a perching foot. The hind 
toe grasps precisely opposite the middle front toe. 

The canary cracks and eats seeds and cuttle-fish. 
Is not its bill fitted for such work? The robin, or 
the brown thrasher, picking its worm from the sod 
has use for a longer bill, 
while there seems to be 
no need of a hard bill. 
The canary is a seed-eater ; 
the robin is a worm-eater. 
The canary and its nu- 
merous cousins form a 
family of finches. The rob- 
in and its kin are a family 
of thrushes. The question 
may arise why some birds 
migrate to warmer regions 
to pass the winter, while others remain throughout 
the year. Those that go are mostly worm-eaters, whose 
food the winter hides or destroys. Those that stay are 




Goldfinches. 



FACTS ABOUT BIRDS. 



201 




chiefly seed-eaters, whose food is not 

covered by snow or frost. 

Many birds have air-tubes connect- 
ing their lungs with their hollow 

bones ; so that, in flying, the air passes 

into all parts of the body and makes 

it lighter. The real mystery of flight 

is in the birds' wings. Could any 

thing be at once so light and so strong 

as the quill, which is the lower, naked 

part of the feather? 

Then look at the vane, or web, 

which is fastened to the after-shaft — 

the upper part of the feather. Each 

layer of the vane is called a barb, and 

cleaves closely to its fellow by hooks, 

or barbules, as is seen in the magnified barbs (Fig. 

13), on either side of the quill. This arrangement 

makes the feather a 
wonderfully strong and 
light oar to row the 
bird-ship. 

Young birds, like 
v- " young children, must 
:;/:: learn their songs. The 
sj singing muscles of the 
child are in the upper 
part of the windpipe, 
and can only be suc- 
cessfully used by prac- 



Fig. 13. Feather. 




House Wren. 



tice. The singing mus- 



cles of the bird are in the lower part of the wind- 



202 



LIVING CREATURES. 



pipe, and the bird acquires the art of using them by 
practice. 

The useful birds, and the birds of song, must be 
protected. Chimney swifts, and swallows, with deep- 
cut mouths for catching flies on the wing, are our 

friends. The little 
house-wren, though 
saucy, is a nice singer, 
and should have a box 
for its nest. A thou- 
sand insects, in a single 
day, have been carried 
by a pair of wrens to 
their young. 

Among the star- 
lings, that have stout, 
rather long and cutting bills, are the oriole, the mead- 
ow-lark and the bobolink. The bobolink is the only 
black and white bird west of the Mississippi. He is 
full of joy and music. Of all the songsters none takes 
deeper hold of the heart than the song-sparrow — he 
is so cheery, so trustful of his human friends. He 
sings from seven to ten different tunes. 









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Bobolinks. 



51. A BIRD NATION. 

The pilgrim fathers and mothers of the innumerable 
nation of house-sparrows came from England to this 
country, in the year 1852. It was a mistake to bring 
in seed-eaters to catch canker-worms. In England, a 



A BIRD NATION. 



203 



hundred years ago, they were disturbers ; and they 
were charged by Mr. White, of Selborne, with destroy- 
ing swallows, robbing martins, and indirectly increas- 
ing harmful insects. 

But they came ; and after a few generations, they 
found this, great, free country just the place for a great 
sparrow nation. Living in our villages and cities, they 
would escape the terrors of owls and hawks. So they 




House -sparrows Attacking a Cat. 

have gone on increasing, learning all the bad ways of 
city life, but none of the good ways. From a single 
pair come five or six broods a year; and, if unop- 
posed, two hundred and seventy-five billions of birds 
in ten years. They have already spread over a terri- 
tory of one million square miles. 

There is a long list of crimes against them. They 
delight to plunder lettuce, peas, beets, cabbage, fruit 



204 



LIVING CREATURES. 



buds, and fruit of peach, pear, plum, cherry, apple, 
and grape. Fifty of them have been counted on a 
single shock of farmer's grain. 

They kill and drive away useful birds and sweet sing- 
ers ; so that, in place of the inoffensive and musical 
wren, robin, and song-sparrow, we have the plunder 
and creech-creech of the house-sparrow. Besides mak- 
ing war upon our pretty home birds, they refuse to do 
the useful work of these birds. The tussock caterpil- 
lar, that devours the 
foliage of nearly every 
tree, is so covered with 
sharp bristles that most 
birds will not touch it. 
But the oriole, the rob- 
in, and the cuckoos at- 
tack it, and the yellow- 
billed cuckoo even 
shears the bristles of 
the worm before swal- 
lowing it. The armies 
however, drive away the robins 
and the cuckoos, and leave our trees to the mercy of 
the caterpillars. They will not work for us, nor will 
they allow our old friends to work for us. 

As fighters, they have no equals among small birds. 
One alone is weak, but many together are strong. 
When one gets into trouble he calls a regiment to help 
him. In one instance, they are reported to have killed 
a cat. But they make good pot-pies. Let us then 
rise and eat the sparrow nation, or the sparrow nation 
may grow strong enough to eat us. 




Song- sparrow. 



of our little ruffians, 



THE GREAT SINGERS. 



205 



52. THE GREAT SINGERS. 



The poets are lovers of 
children, flowers, and birds. 
Without the song of birds, 
the summer would be as 
cheerless as if it were 
without children and flow- 
ers. But there is a differ- 
ence in the power and 
sweetness of bird-song, as 
there is a difference in the 
beauty of flowers and the 
attractiveness of children. 

The English poets lead 
us to think that no feath- 
ered songsters can compare 
with the sky-lark and the 
nightingale. The poet 
Montgomery tells us something of their habits : 

11 The bird that soars on highest wing, 
Builds on the ground her lowly nest ; 
And she that doth most sweetly sing, 

Sings in the shade when all things rest. 
In lark and nightingale we see 
What honor hath humility." 

The nightingale, called Philomel, seems to have been 
the favorite bird of Milton : 

"Sweet bird, that shun'st the noise of folly, 
Most musical, most melancholy, 
Thee, chantress, oft the woods among 
I woo, to hear thy evening song." 




European Nightingale. 



206 



LIVING CREATURES. 



while 
when 
says : 



Americans are usu- 
ally disappointed when 
they first hear the sky- 
lark and the nightin- 
gale. They think our 
own great singers have 
finer voices, though 
we have fewer great 
poets to extol them. 
The sky-lark sings 
it soars, and pours its notes down upon the ear, 
itself has risen out of sight. Hence Shakespeare 

''Hark! hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings." 




English Sky-lark. 



And Tennyson adds : 

"And drowned in yonder living blue, 
The lark becomes a sightless song." 

With the first warm breath of summer, our wood 
thrush, with reddish back and mottled breast, plays 
his flute, sweet and 
clear, in rising and fall- 
ing measures. 

And we have our 
nightingale, or night- 
singer — the Southern 
mocking-bird. His 

best song is in the 
woods, where Long- 
fellow finds him sing- 
ing to the sad heart of 
Evangeline in search of her lover in the wild South-west : 




Mocking-bird. 



THE GREAT SINGERS. 



207 



"Then from a neighboring thicket the mocking-bird, wildest of 

singers, 
Swinging aloft on a willow spray that hangs o'er the water, 
Shook from his little throat such floods of delirious music, 
That the whole air and the woods and the waves seemed silent 

to listen." 

Mr. Champlin, of New York, with a coaching party 
in England, witnessed the flight and song of five sky- 
larks together. After this unusual concert, he says of 
the American mocking-bird's song: "It is sweeter, 




Prairie-lark. 



richer, mellower, more varied and more brilliant, of 
greater compass, more powerful and more prolonged 
than that of any songster in British woods." 

Our most remarkable bird-vocalist seems to be the 
western meadow-lark, or prairie-lark. Because of its 
superiority, and because few had noticed it, Audubon 
called it ncglccta. It is essentially the same, in form 
and colors, as the common meadow-lark, or starling. 



208 LIVING CREATURES. 

It differs in habits, and is greatly superior in song. In 
the prairie country of the North-west, it sings early 
and late in the season ; early and late in the day. It 
sings at rest and it sings while soaring. 

Mr. Ernest E. Thompson, whose experienced hand 
has drawn many of the bird-pictures that adorn these 
pages, has made the acquaintance of all the great sing- 
ers, at home and abroad, in their native haunts ; and 
of the prairie-lark he says: "It is one of two or three 
great ones of the world of bird-song." 

We have, also, our sky-lark. In the region of the 
upper Missouri River is the Missouri titlark, that rises 
into the air while he sings a tune which some people 
think quite equal to that of the European sky-lark. 

Let us open our ears and hearts to the beauty and 
melody of the birds. Like the joy of the sunshine 
and flowers; like the cheer of pleasant faces; like the 
charm of kind words, good books, and loving friends, 
they help to lighten the load of life. 




